Sixty years ago, President John F. Kennedy decided not to go to Gettysburg — instead embarking on what turned out to be a fateful trip to Texas. History might have been different had he attended the hundredth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, as hoped and planned, on Nov. 19, 1963. JFK’s keynote was to be the highlight of the centennial commemoration of Lincoln’s rhetorical zenith. The ceremony went on without him — as it has for generations.
But three score years later — as we prepare to mark the 160th anniversary of Lincoln’s best-remembered speech — another intervention has cast a pall on the annual event at the Soldiers’ National Cemetery, where Lincoln delivered his “few appropriate remarks” in 1863.
This coming Sunday, Nov. 19, Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of JFK’s predecessor Dwight D. Eisenhower — himself a onetime keynoter at what has become known in this historic town as “Dedication Day” — was to offer the commemorative address. She was set to stand in sight of the row upon row of simple gravestones that mark the “final resting place,” as Lincoln once put it, “for those who here gave their lives” so the “nation might live.”
Scheduled to join her on the cemetery’s brick platform, among others, were beloved historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and Los Angeles-based actor Graham Sibley (reading the Gettysburg Address), who played the title role in Goodwin’s recent History Channel docudrama, “Abraham Lincoln.” My job was to introduce Goodwin on this sacred site.
Unfortunately, another last-minute cancellation has wrecked expectations. Because of the uncertainty of a possible government shutdown (which was averted) organizers were forced to abort their longstanding plans. They preemptively moved the ceremonies to the Majestic Theater in downtown Gettysburg, a recently restored, 98-year-old vaudeville and silent movie house.
One consolation: the theater stands just across the town square from the historic David Wills House, where Lincoln himself stayed the night before delivering his brief oration, and where reportedly he wrote out the final draft of his address. Even though Congress avoided a shutdown at the eleventh hour, the decision to move this extraordinary event is now irreversible.
The Majestic is a beautiful little gem, but in terms of ambiance can neither match the evocative setting of the cemetery itself — where Lincoln once stood — nor accommodate the large crowds that typically throng the ceremonies despite the cold winds that always seem to buffet the grounds on Dedication Day.
Even though the House of Representatives is hopelessly bogged down in a civil war of its own, federal employees — including National Park Service battlefield guides — are not now facing furloughs. The last time a shutdown loomed, they had to chain the entrances to the cemetery as well as the vast battlefield, disappointing the thousands of spectators who come every year to mark the anniversary of Lincoln’s address.
Still, they had to relocate the annual swearing-in of diverse new citizens from around the world, who so meaningfully take their oath of allegiance on the spot Lincoln once dedicated to “a new birth of freedom.”
Here is where he memorably vowed that American veterans shall not have died in vain — and that, miracle that it was, the nation itself remained an “unfinished work.” And here is where Lincoln reminded us that the American dream was irrevocably based on the promise in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” — providing a determined reminder to those who were still fighting so recklessly to destroy democracy and enshrine the free nation’s most poisonous hypocrisy: slavery.
These repeated, self-destructive, up-to-the-brink threats of government shutdowns threaten our future, raising serious concerns about our financial stability in both global markets and world capitals. And in small but poignant ways like the forced relocation of Gettysburg Dedication Day, they demean the past as well.
Against all odds, the village of Gettysburg managed to stay open through a hellish three-day battle in July 1863. Its battered residents somehow organized to care for thousands of wounded, repair the damage to their streets and homes, and ultimately bury the dead in dignity here. But it will not be open on Sunday to remind people of the sacrifice of those who died here, and the eloquence of the great leader who consecrated this hallowed ground.
Government of, by, and for the people seems a tenuous prospect these days — especially when Congress cannot pass an in-time drama-free [mere] continuing resolution to keep us open so we can look ahead with confidence and look back with respect.
Holzer, the director of Hunter College’s Roosevelt House, is the author or editor of more than 50 books on Lincoln and the Civil War.
Government of the people closes in Gettysburg: 160 years after Lincoln’s timeless speech
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18.11.2023
Sixty years ago, President John F. Kennedy decided not to go to Gettysburg — instead embarking on what turned out to be a fateful trip to Texas. History might have been different had he attended the hundredth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, as hoped and planned, on Nov. 19, 1963. JFK’s keynote was to be the highlight of the centennial commemoration of Lincoln’s rhetorical zenith. The ceremony went on without him — as it has for generations.
But three score years later — as we prepare to mark the 160th anniversary of Lincoln’s best-remembered speech — another intervention has cast a pall on the annual event at the Soldiers’ National Cemetery, where Lincoln delivered his “few appropriate remarks” in 1863.
This coming Sunday, Nov. 19, Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of JFK’s predecessor Dwight D. Eisenhower — himself a onetime keynoter at what has become known in this historic town as “Dedication Day” — was to offer the commemorative address. She was set to stand in sight of the row upon row of simple gravestones that mark the “final resting place,” as Lincoln once put it, “for those who here gave their lives” so the “nation might........
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