President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address in 1863.

Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

-President Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19th, 1863.

In the decades leading up to the Civil War, a number of issues arose between the northern and southern states in the United States. These issues included economic disputes and questions of states’ rights, but most specifically at issue was the matter of slavery, and whether the western territories and new states would become free states or states that allowed slavery. The Whig Party, which had opposed slavery since its formation in 1834, disintegrated after the Kansas-Nebraska Bill passed, allowing territories to determine their own slave-holding or free status by popular sovereignty. In Ripon, Wisconsin, in 1854, the Republican Party was formed when former members of the Whig party convened a meeting to establish a new party to oppose the spread of slavery into the western territories. The Republicans began to gain support throughout the North, but by 1860, most Southern States were threatening secession if the Republicans won the Presidency. In November, 1860, with the election of Abraham Lincoln, that is exactly what happened. Within three months, six states had seceded, and by April, the War Between the States had begun. The Battle of Gettysburg may not have been the most decisive battle of the war, but it did mark the Confederacy’s military high water mark. Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address four months after the battle, and his words served several important purposes. In addition to marking the sacrifices of the men who died in the battle, Lincoln’s words expressed with clarity the reasons for that sacrifice: preservation of the Union and ending the scourge of slavery. Lincoln, an inspiring writer and orator, wrote the speech himself, and though in it he said, "the world will little note nor long remember what we say here," the ten sentences of the Gettysburg Address have become among the best known, not just in America, but around the world.

ReadWriteThink
In Myth and Truth: The Gettysburg Address (9-12), students explore myths surrounding the Gettysburg Address and think critically about commonly believed “facts” about this important speech and the Civil War.

Inventing and Presenting Unit 2: Effective Speeches and Building the Invention (6-8) is part of a three-part unit from ReadWriteThink titled "Inventing and Presenting." In this interdisciplinary unit, students use what they have learned about experimentation and the scientific method, critical thinking, clear writing and effective speaking. Students read about inventors, propose inventions to solve problems they have identified and build and test their inventions. They record and graph data and create visuals to share that data. In addition, students study famous speeches to identify the elements of effective speaking, and they propose in writing an appropriate scenario for sharing the results of their experimentation. This second lesson has students identify the characteristics of effective speeches by reading and reviewing some historical speeches. They start building a three-dimensional model of an invention to solve a problem of their choice, and then verify the adequacy (or inadequacy) of the invention through experimentation. Throughout the lesson, students chart their own progress.

In Engaging Students in a Collaborative Exploration of the Gettysburg Address (3-5), students investigate the historical significance of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, as well as the time period and people involved.

EDSITEment
Life Before the Civil War (6-8) is part of a curriculum unit designed to help students develop a foundation on which to understand the basic disagreements between North and South. Through the investigation of primary source documents—photographs, census information and other archival documents—students gain an appreciation of everyday life in the North and South, changes occurring in the lives of ordinary Americans and some of the major social and economic issues of the years before the Civil War. In this lesson, students study differences between North and South by comparing the Northern community of Franklin, Pennsylvania, and the Southern community of Augusta, Virginia, using archival documents.

In People and Places in the North and South (6-8), another lesson from the same unit, students concentrate on differences as they look at the way people made a living before the Civil War in two communities, one Northern and one Southern.

Lincoln's inaugural address provides the focus of the EDSITEment unit We Must Not Be Enemies: Lincoln's First Inaugural Address (3-5).

ARTSEDGE
In Civil War Music (5-8), students identify songs popular during the Civil War as rallying songs, recruiting songs, popular entertainment songs, campfire songs, sentimental songs or patriotic songs. Students compare and contrast songs from the North and from the South, then choose a Civil War song to perform using voice or an instrument.