What speech did Abraham Lincoln deliver at Gettysburg National Cemetery in 1863?

Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at Gettysburg National Cemetery on November 19, 1863.

Lincoln spoke during the dedication of Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The ceremony took place about four and a half months after the Battle of Gettysburg, fought from July 1 to July 3, 1863. The address honored Union soldiers who had died in the battle and framed the Civil War as a test of representative government.

The speech is famous for its brevity and its call for a “new birth of freedom.” Lincoln presented the United States as a nation founded on equality and argued that the living should continue the work of preserving self-government.

The Gettysburg Address is not the same as Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect on January 1, 1863, or his later Second Inaugural Address, delivered in March 1865. Several manuscript versions survive, including the widely used Bliss copy.