The Gettysburg Address: Is God Dead In America?

            Last Tuesday was the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address", a speech that we can all agree helped shape and define America. On the morning of this anniversary, I was sitting in a class at my local Junior High School. It was the first period of the day, so the loudspeaker came on for announcements. After the bulk of the announcements, a boy came on the loudspeaker and said, "Today is the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address!" He proceeded to read the speech. However, I was disturbed by what he recited. The wording of the speech that he was reading was far from the wording of the Gettysburg Address that I knew. What is going on here? I asked myself. My initial thought was that he was trying to recite the speech from memory, and that he was failing very badly. However, at these were his words at the end of the speech: "...that these dead shall not have died in vain, that the nation, 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." He had omitted God from the Gettysburg Address! At this point, I was furious. The school district must not allow God in schools. Lincoln would be ashamed. I thought. However, I thought nothing else of it as I went about experiencing my Tuesday. However, my anger was re-kindled that evening when I came across this video:

            My anger was now as hot as a burnt potato bursting out of an over-sized volcano. However, a lot of this anger was a result of my ignorance on this issue. I suspected that something was going on, so I decided to do a little bit of research. This is what I discovered:

Obviously, nobody knows the exact words that came out of Abraham Lincoln's mouth during the Gettysburg Address, because it was a speech. We know the exact words of the Constitution, because the Constitution was always meant to be a physical, written document. You can't know the exact words of a speech unless you record that speech, and unfortunately, a sound recording of the Gettysburg Address is not available. As a result of this, there are five original copies of the Gettysburg Address: 

The "Nicolay Copy" 

The "Hay Draft"

The "Everett Copy"

The "Bancroft Copy"

The "Bliss Copy"

            The first two of these copies (the Nicolay and the Hay) were drafts written by Lincoln before giving the speech. These copies are often referred to as the first and second drafts of the Gettysburg Address. Neither of these drafts include the words "under God" in them. These copies were originally written by Lincoln before giving his speech, and the drafts are named after John Nicolay and John Hay, who were two of Lincoln's secretaries. Obviously, neither of these drafts include Lincoln's signature, because they were only notes to himself. Scholars disagree on which of these copies was the actual paper that Lincoln used as a reference during his speech, but it makes more sense that the Hay Draft would be the paper, because it was the second draft of the speech, and the wording is closer to the wording of many newspaper reports of the speech.   

Abraham Lincoln, shortly after delivering "The
Gettysburg Address"

          The remaining three copies (the Everett, Bancroft, and Bliss) were copies that Lincoln wrote after delivering the Gettysburg Address. All three of these copies each include the words "under God" in them. Lincoln wrote these copies by hand as a request from three different people at three different times (Edward Everett, George Bancroft, and Alexander Bliss). Many experts accept the Bliss copy as the Gettysburg Address, because it is the only copy out of all five that includes Lincoln's signature (the Bliss copy was also the only Gettysburg Address that I knew on Tuesday). 

         The copy that was being quoted by President Obama and the boy at the Junior High School is the Nicolay copy (the copy that is believed to be the first draft of the Gettysburg Address). It doesn't make any sense that they would choose to quote the first draft, because Lincoln obviously changed his speech after writing the first draft. It would have made a lot more sense if they would've quoted the Hay draft, at least. It certainly would've made a lot more sense to quote any of the drafts that were written after Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address, because the drafts that were written afterwards are obviously a lot more accurate! There is only one explanation for this: politicians and government want to get rid of God in this country.

        Why is it important that we have God in our country? Think about it: this country was based on principles of religious freedom. Religious freedom was the purpose for the Pilgrims and the Puritans coming to America. Look at America's history. Without God, we would be nothing. America would not be independent from Great Britain without God, because the Revolutionary War obviously wouldn't have been won without God. Without God's help, this country would have certainly been split in two at the time of the Civil War. Look at history! This is God's chosen land, but it is becoming something else, and this will undoubtedly bring the curses of God upon us. Where are you, America? Wake up! Millions of us want to take God off of our currency, out of Congress, and out of our Pledge of Allegiance. We have to stop this. Unless we turn this train around, it will plummet into the depths of hell and destruction.

        If there is one thing that I know about the Gettysburg Address, it is this: the words "under God" were uttered by Abraham Lincoln in his speech on November 19, 1863. All three of Lincoln's copies of the Gettysburg Address that were written after he gave the speech mention these words. Multiple newspapers that initially reported the Gettysburg Address mention these words. William E. Barton, one of Lincoln's most famous biographers, says this on the issue: 

"Every stenographic report, good, bad and indifferent, says 'that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom.' There was no common source from which all the reporters could have obtained those words but from Lincoln's own lips at the time of delivery. It will not do to say that [Secretary of War] Stanton suggested those words after Lincoln's return to Washington, for the words were telegraphed by at least three reporters on the afternoon of the delivery."

The arguments for Lincoln's first two drafts of the Gettysburg Address are hereby void. Lincoln had added impromptu words in many of his past speeches. All proof and evidence of the wording of this speech points to the two words "under God". Lincoln was a man of God, and under God, Lincoln kept this nation united in the midst of the Civil War. The Gettysburg Address is a witness and a testimony of this truth:

"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. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate--we cannot consecrate--we cannot hallow--this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to 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 the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." --Abraham Lincoln