The Portland daily press., 1894-02-05
Lincoln,s Gettysburg Address.

In the February Century Mr.. John G.
secretary, gives an account of how the
famous address was written. He says:
There is no decisive record of when
Mr.. Lincoln wrote the first sentences Of
his proposed address. He probably fol-
lowed his usual habit in such matters,
using great. deliberation in arranging his
thoughts and molding his phrases men
tally, waiting to reduce them to writing
until they had taken satisfactory form.
There was much greater necessity for
such precaution in this case, because the
invitation specified that the address of
dedication should only be "a few appro-
pirate remarks" Brevity in speech and
writing was one of Lincoln's marked
characteristics: but in this instance there
existed two other motives calculated to
strongly support his natural inclination.
One was that Mr.. Everett would be GER
tain to make long address; the ether,
the want of opportunity even to think
leisurely of what he might desire to
say. All this strongly confirms the cor
rectness of thesstatement made by the
Hon. James Speed, in an interview print
ed in the Louisville COMMERCIAL in
Novem Der, 1879, that the President told
him that the day before he left Wash
ington he found time to write about
half of his speech" 1t was
of the 10Th that the writer, Mr.. Lincoln's
private secretary, went to the upper
room of Mr.. Wills lat Gettysburg) which
Mr.. Lincoln occupied, to report for duty,
and remained with the President while
he finished writing the Gettysburg adj
dress, during the short leisure he could
utilize for his purpose before being called
to take his place in the procession,
which was announced on the programme
to move promptly at ten O'Clock.
There is neither record evidence, nor
well founded tradition that Mr.. Lincoln
did any writing, or made any notes, on
the journey between Washington and
Gettysburg. The train consisted of four
coaches, and either compost
tion or writing would have been ex-
tremely troublesome amid all the move
ment, the noise, the conversation, the
greetings, and the questionings which
ordinary courtesy required him to under
go in these surroundings: but still worse
would have been the BOOKINGS and jolt
ings of the train, rendering writing vir-
tually impossible Mr.. Lincoln carried
in his pocket the autograph manuscript
of so much of his address as he had
written at Washington the day before
It fills one page of the letter paper at
that time habitually used in the Execu-
tive Mansion, containing the plainly
printed blank heading; both paper and
print giving convincing testimony to
the simple and economical business
methods then prevailing in the White
House.
This portion of the manuscript begins
with the line -Four score and seven
years ago." and ends 1T is rather for us
the living" etc. The whole of this first
in the Presidents strong clear hand,
without blot or erasure; and the last
line in the following form: at is rather
for US, the living, to stand here" the
last three words being. like the rest, in
ink. From the fact that this sentence
is incomplete, we may infer that at the
time of writing it in Washington the
remainder of the sentence was also
written in ink on another piece of paper.
But when, at Gettysburg on the morn
ing Of the cereomnies, Mr.. Lincoln fin
ished his manuscript he used lead
pencil, with which he crossed out the
last three words of the first page , and
wrote above them i'll pencil 1--WE here
dedicate" at which point he took up a
new half sheet of paper-not white letter
paper as before. but a blush gray fools
cap of large size with wide lines, habit
ua1ly used by him for long or formal
documents, and on this he wrote, all in
pencil, the remainder of the word, and
of the first draft of the address, compris-
ing total of nine lines and half. The
probably about an hour.