The Gettysburg Address turns 150
Earlier today I read somewhere that some teabagger (yes, I know which one but I prefer this more dismissive reference) was upset because (if I'm following the details correctly) in the short film Ken Burns made about "The Gettysburg Address" for the occasion, today, of its 150th anniversary, President Obama was filmed reading The Address and he left out God!
Now I'm interested to learn that there are 5 known surviving copies of the The Address, all in Lincoln's hand, and that each one is different. It is not known which was actually delivered. However, one can compare the texts and see that 2 of the 5 versions do not mention God. The "Nicolay Copy", housed at the Library of Congress, is one of the 2, and it's the version that the President read.
One Response
Subscribe to comments via RSS
Subscribe to comments via RSS
Leave a Reply
To thwart spam, comments by new people are held for moderation; give me a bit of time and your comment will show up.
I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Thursday, 27 February 2014 at 08.27
Permalink
The politically wired Obama could have went with majority consensus and read a version with God. But he would rather read alone.