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In the aftermath of the commemoration, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address failed to attract as much attention as his earlier Emancipation Proclamation. But, as Boritt makes clear, after the end of the flawed Reconstruction era, when Americans from the North and South turned to reconciliation, the strong bipartisan aspect of Lincoln's Gettysburg Gospel and his Second Inaugural Address found a receptive audience. So too in the 20th century, various political figures and factions selected and emphasized portions of Lincoln's address that fit their needs. When in 1963 Martin Luther King, Jr., chose to give his "I Have a Dream Speech" (exactly a century after Lincoln's Gettysburg Address) in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., that event signaled the continuing role of Lincoln's remarkable speech in American public life.
The core matter of Lincoln's "gospel" was a democratic faith in equality and freedom, but it also included an explicitly religious dimension. Several memorable phrases in the speech, Boritt suggests, revealed Lincoln's own personal spiritual journey. The president probably added the words "under God" as he spoke, although he did not mention Christianity. He invoked biblical language his audience would understand, and in mentioning a "new birth of freedom," he was, argues Boritt, calling for a "born-again nation." Here were illuminating signs, the author adds, in Lincoln's pilgrimage from secular skeptic "into a religious fatalist."[1] In his line-by-line and sometimes word-by-word reading of the Gettysburg Address, Boritt shows how Lincoln incorporated these themes even while remembering the brave and courageous men who had died there on the battlefield. Boritt's conclusion about Lincoln's speech is exactly right: "The Gospel of Gettysburg was born. American memory was being created."
A few quibbles are in order. Boritt more than adequately covers the turns the Gettysburg Gospel took in the late 19th century, but he's much too brief in discussing the cultural uses to which it was put in the next century. He devotes only fifteen pages to that extended period. The author also seems torn between popular and academic approaches to his subject. Most of his book will appeal to general readers, but his extremely detailed analysis of Lincoln's speech, as he himself admits, will be "mostly of interest to scholars." It is surprising, too, how little Boritt engages previous scholarship on his subject (except in his appended bibliographical essay), particularly Garry Wills' Pulitzer Prize-winning study of the Gettysburg Address.[2]
But on nearly every page The Gettysburg Gospel testifies to Gabor Boritt's obvious strengths as a historian and writer. From his first monograph, Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream (1978), through his numerous essays and edited books as director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College and on to the present work, Boritt has shown himself to be a thorough, diligent, fair-minded scholar. His wide-reaching research in published primary sources, newspapers, and manuscript collections is everywhere apparent.
We see more clearly, after reading this book, how Lincoln's famous speech has shaped American cultural memory, and how it in turn has been shaped and reshaped by the imperatives of succeeding generations. And Boritt reminds us that this story is far from over. The words of the greatest American president—uttered on that memorable day in November 1863—about our "unfinished business" in achieving freedom, equality, and full democracy are challenges still calling us. The Gettysburg Gospel, if heard and heeded, remains a beckoning beacon.
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