The Importance of the Gettysburg Address

This is the basic theme of Lincoln at Gettysburg. Author Garry Wills believes the speech was a turning point in American intellectual history. He takes the controversial stand that the Gettysburg Address caused a revolution in the way Americans thought about themselves and their country.

The Gettysburg Address framed the United States not as a locality where people share a similar nationality or language like France or Germany, but rather as a people who share an idea. America is a country "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." If you believe that, you are an American. Wills also postulates that Lincoln used the Declaration of Independence not the United States Constitution as the founders' document. Using the ideals of the Declaration as "all men are created equal," Lincoln gained the ability to indirectly condemn slavery as...