"On November 26, 1863, the Centralia, Illinois Sentinel reported on a speech President Abraham Lincoln had made at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery the previous week. According to the paper, Lincoln’s address began: “Ninety years ago our fathers formed a Government consecrated to freedom.”
"Sound familiar? Not really? Yes, the Sentinel got the words wrong, but at least it made space for Lincoln’s speech; most papers didn’t. The Gettysburg Address was largely ignored in 1863. But the next 140 years would turn it, along with the rest of Lincoln’s writing, into American gospel. In two new books out this week (Sunday is the 143rd anniversary of the Gettysburg Address), eminent Lincoln scholars take a closer look at Lincoln’s words and their enduring power.
"When Lincoln entered office, no one expected the lightly educated farm boy to craft phrases that would resonate for centuries. But in Lincoln’s Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words (Knopf, 352 pages, $26.95), a painstaking analysis of Lincoln’s speeches and published letters, the historian Douglas Wilson shows just how meticulous the sixteenth President was with words, and how he achieved, through tireless rewriting, a perfectly calibrated ratio of force and reassurance. Time and again we see him use pet devices—pointed questions, antitheses, strategic acquiescence to an opposing view—to convince, or soothe, or attack."
