Gettysburg Address

American  

noun

1. the notable short speech made by President Lincoln on November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the national cemetery at Gettysburg, Pa.

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Gettysburg Address British  

noun

1. history the speech made by President Lincoln at the dedication of the national cemetery on the Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg in Nov 1863

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Gettysburg Address Cultural  

1. A speech delivered by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. Lincoln was speaking at the dedication of a soldiers' cemetery at the site of the Battle of Gettysburg. The opening and closing lines are particularly memorable: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal…. [We must] be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the Earth.”

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Lincoln surprised his audience at Gettysburg with the brevity of his speech. He delivered the Gettysburg Address, which lasted about three minutes, after a two-hour speech by Edward Everett, one of the leading orators of the day.