Speech delivered after decisive Union victories at Gettysburg, Vicksburg

Note: Independence Day 1863 was celebrated in the nation's capital, but President Abraham Lincoln declined to deliver an address. Although he was aware and pleased that Confederate forces were in retreat following a three-day battle in Gettysburg, Pa., Lincoln's response was tempered because of another Civil War battle in Vicksburg, Miss. That battle, too, was won by the Union -- on the Fourth of July. When news of the Vicksburg surrender reached Washington on July 7, a large crowd gathered in Washington, D.C., and Lincoln hurriedly crafted his Independence Day address, which was delivered three days after the holiday. Here are excerpts:

"Fellow-citizens: I am very glad to see you to-night. But yet I will not say I thank you for this call. But I do most sincerely thank Almighty God for the occasion on which you have called. How long ago is it? Eighty-odd years since, upon the Fourth day of July, for the first time in the world, a union body of representatives was assembled to declare as a self-evident truth that all men were created equal."

• "And ... now on this Fourth of July just past, when a gigantic rebellion has risen in the land, precisely at the bottom of which is an effort to overthrow that principle "that all men are created equal," we have a surrender of one of their most powerful positions and powerful armies forced upon them on that very day. And I see in the succession of battles in Pennsylvania, which continued three days, so rapidly following each other as to be justly called one great battle, fought on the first, second and third of July; on the fourth the enemies of the declaration that all men are created equal had to turn tail and run."

• "Gentlemen, this is a glorious theme and a glorious occasion for a speech, but I am not prepared to make one worthy of the theme and worthy of the occasion. I would like to speak in all praise that is due to the the [sic] many brave officers and soldiers who have fought in the cause of the Union and liberties of this country from the beginning of this war, not on occasions of success, but upon the more trying occasions of the want of success."

• "And now I have said about as much as I ought to say in this impromptu manner, and if you please, I'll take the music."

-- Abraham Lincoln

Independence Day address delivered on July 7, 1863

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History Professor says....
The civil war was a waste of time and lives, when the issues could have been settled by compromises on both sides: states rights for the South and bans on slavery for the North, which were the end results any way after too many widows and orphans were made.
7/4/2009

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