Mending “A More Perfect Union”

Chapter 4 will analyze the Gettysburg Address given by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 as a healing message to the nation in the midst of the Civil War (1861–1865). The analysis will focus on how Lincoln’s address avoids framing the Civil War within the “us versus them” matrix, which in turn sets it apart from the Declaration of Independence. Special attention will be given to the interplay of figurative motifs in his speech that create a link between the ideals of the Declaration, the cause of saving the Union and the decision to emancipate America’s population of enslaved people. The address puts a positive spin on the civil conflict and proposes a perspective from which this conflict might be considered, without emphasizing the traumatic nature of the national crisis.