What 1863 speech by Abraham Lincoln dedicated the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg?

The 1863 speech by Abraham Lincoln dedicating the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg was the Gettysburg Address.

Lincoln delivered the address on November 19, 1863, during the American Civil War. The ceremony marked the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, several months after the Battle of Gettysburg, one of the war’s largest and most consequential battles.

The speech followed a longer presentation by Edward Everett, but Lincoln’s brief remarks became the ceremony’s most enduring words. He connected the Civil War to the founding principles of equality and popular government, describing the conflict as a test of whether a nation based on those ideals could endure.

The Gettysburg Address did not formally free enslaved people; the Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect on January 1, 1863. Instead, Lincoln’s speech reinterpreted the nation’s purpose and emphasized a government of the people. It is remembered as one of the most influential speeches in American history.