Gettysburg Address Versus Declaration of IndependenceEssay title: Gettysburg Address Versus Declaration of IndependenceLincoln’s Address Versus Jefferson’s DeclarationTwo of the most important, and, perhaps the two most important documents in American history are the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address. The Declaration of Independence, the document of secession written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776, called for the complete independence of the states from the British Empire. The Gettysburg Address was a document on the theory of union that stressed the need for one united country and expressed the importance of doing whatever necessary to complete the task of keeping the states united as one. It was written and delivered by Abraham Lincoln in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania at a cemetery dedication for soldiers who had died in the famous Civil War battle there.
SALT LAKE CITY (April 18, 1825)
SALT LAKE CITY’s Declaration of Independence was written sometime before the Civil War. Although the Declaration of independence was only written in 1863, the central idea of the Declaration of Independence was to establish a U.S. government in an independent, sovereign place called Washington, D.C. It was one of many features within the Declaration intended to unite people to a common cause and provide a common goal for the United States. The Declaration had this:
To set forth: —
…The laws and principles of the United States designed and used to establish, maintain, and perpetuate the government of the United States, and to establish, maintain, and make peace with and without the foreign powers of the foreign powers.
There was a period of time when this text was written when the nation was still very much in war. The United States was still in force, at that time, in the Great War. And, in consequence of that war, two of the three most significant elements of the United States government, namely–(1) National Public Service and—(2) the war fund.
The idea of the U.S. government creating the new political system for the Confederacy, the new federal government created through the creation of the federal government and the creation of the federal government took its form before the Declaration of Independence, so it took for three thousand years. In 1800, Richard Nixon became president of the United States. Nixon, who had been president since 1862, wrote the Declaration of Independence on November 17, 1862. The Washington Monument is located in the Capitol Building. Nixon wrote the words of the Declaration, as did several other prominent men. The Constitution was drafted on Monday, January 4, 1866, and the date of ratification is March 19, 1867.
Nixon first met with Abraham Lincoln with a view to holding meetings on February 1, 1864. As it turned out, Lincoln and Nixon did not meet that day for all the reasons set forth in the Declaration of Independence. As Lincoln’s wife Sarah told the Senate, “This was a meeting in which the two men stood to talk for several hours, and the two of them exchanged words. And Lincoln said, in the end this was his last meeting before he gave it up.”[14]
The fact that Lincoln spoke at the time of the Declaration of Independence was one of many reasons that he ended up with a book called The Declaration of Independence.[15] It was an unfinished pamphlet. When it came to addressing the United States, that was it. But a few years later, Lincoln asked the president to go get it printed in full, which in some instances he did.
The New Jersey Republican Party sponsored the Declaration of Independence. In 1776, the New Jersey Republican President Benjamin Harrison signed the document into law, setting the stage for his election as U.S. President. The Constitution states,
No act of Congress shall be rendered without the consent and consent of the people, or of the people’s bodies having respectively the power and authority to carry it into execution: Provided, That the representation by a majority of the State Legislatures elected by the United States of this Constitution shall apply to all legislative acts done in pursuance of it or of the laws and resolutions of the State Legislatures that were recently passed in pursuance of such a representation.
The New Jersey Republican was a major player in the 1829 Civil War. In 1831, in the process of drafting the Constitution, the
These two documents of Jefferson and Lincoln’s are different in more ways than they are similar. More specifically, the clear difference between the two in organization and contradiction of arguments that each expresses are what show that the Gettysburg Address and the Declaration of Independence were two documents written on completely different ends of the spectrum. Because of this, the two are just as significant to each other as they are individually to the construction and shaping of America and its rich history. The fact that these two documents are so different from one another is what makes them such great pieces of history. Jefferson’s idea of decentralization and freedom versus Lincoln’s theory of one centralized, unified, and indivisible nation and government represents the change and difference of opinion between two people of different eras in American history. This change and difference of opinion was the result of a growing country and is what was needed in order to build it and develop it into the country that it is today.
When analyzing the differences between Gettysburg Address and the Declaration of Independence, the first factor that must be taken into account is the difference in organization between the two. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence as a syllogism, with a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion drawn from his premises. The major premise of Jefferson’s argument is his theory of “natural law,” where he argues, “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” He goes on to state that it is the government’s job to protect these rights of the people and if it fails to do so, “it is [the people’s] duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.” Having this major, broader premise in his argument is what leads him into his minor premise, which is his attack on King George III. Jefferson accuses the King of preventing the people from exercising the rights that Jefferson previously mentions. He then provides specific examples of how George III and his government did so. With this argument, composed of his major and minor premises, Jefferson goes into his conclusion, the call for secession of the colonies from the British Empire. The organization of the Declaration of Independence helps Jefferson’s argument a great deal. The syllogism provides areas for multiple arguments that can be backed by strong evidence. With it, Jefferson is able to argue his points in a clear and easy way with little room for a rebuttal from an opposing argument.
Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, on the other hand, is organized quite differently from Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. This document is much shorter and to the point. Lincoln’s theories are presented in a past, present, and future argument. He opens his speech with the past, mentioning the founding fathers of the United States (ironically speaking of Jefferson) and the values that they possessed when creating a new nation. Lincoln then quickly moves to the present. He states, “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and do dedicated, can long endure.” Here, he is identifying the country’s current state, in the midst of a civil war, as a problem or, even more so, as a challenge that has been brought upon the United States that it must overcome. Lincoln then goes on to the main, and most crucial part of the Gettysburg Address, the future. Here is where he sums up what needs to be done in the years to come in order to make sure that the country can in fact overcome the challenge that it has brought upon itself. Though Lincoln’s argument is shorter and not as in depth or broken down as Jefferson’s, his past, present, and future strategy is arguably just as effective. The Gettysburg Address is less of an argumentative document and much more of a motivational one