July 14, 2016 • 43 mins
The Gettysburg Address is one of the most famous speeches in political history, despite only being a few hundred words long. What was so special about this commemoration? We'll give you the skinny right here and now.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast on
Josh Clark And that's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over
there and this is Stuff You Should Know podcast the
NPR edition. Bob Ross. Oh Man, there's a documentary out
(00:26):
about him. Yeah, I haven't seen it, but I will forture.
Oh speaking up, can't wait. I saw Blood Support for
the first time in my life the other week. The movie. Yes,
have you seen it? Oh, Chuck, I mean that's all
parts of it, but I love every second of that movie.
(00:46):
It was so great. They basically made a movie to
show that John Claude Van Dam can do like crazy splits.
They made a movie for that. Yeah, the only version
I would watch of that would be like the riff
tracks version. Don't you don't even a need riff tracks? Yeah,
but they make everything better, sure of course they do.
But I would love to see a riff tracks Blood Sport.
I'm just saying it's a pretty great movie we're seeing. Yeah,
(01:09):
the bad guy in it is just terrifying because he's
like so clearly insane and like dangerous. Yeah, Like this
guy is operating on a level. No one else in
the movie, including surprisingly Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds,
is operating on it. He's the trusty sidekick. What happened
(01:31):
to Jean Claude? He's still around. I think he's all
over like Twitter. Well, I think he's like a couple
of times a day tweets like, hey, it's me Jean
Claude vandam remember Uh, well he had that big commercial
that was out not too long ago, and that where
he did a split between like two trucks or something,
(01:51):
um like with one leg on each truck, like driving
down the road, if I remember correct. He's reading his kindle?
Is it a kindle? Lad I think so? And I
think I didn't see him, but he's he's got to
be in one of those dumb what are the movies
with all the people with Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis and
uh the Last Temptation of Christ. Yeah, yeah, he's in
(02:13):
one of those ladies. Oh Red, No, Yes, he's got
to be in one of those, right probably he would
literally be the only person of that elk in those movies.
I hope he is. Yeah, me too. I saw Red
the other day for the first time too. That's pretty entertaining, wasn't.
Yeah I haven't seen those either, some stuff just you know, yeah,
(02:36):
let's get serious, Chuck all right, yeah, okay, alright, we
talked about Jean Claude Van Damn and that can only
mean one thing. Gettysburg address, right, that's right. Man. Uh, well,
he's a better question. Okay. Have you you saw Lincoln?
Didn't you? I did? I didn't you didn't. I know
(02:57):
enough to know why we were talking like this. Supposedly
that is an accurate depiction of Abraham Lincoln speaking voice. Yeah.
I read this article in the Atlantic. It was one
of those things where the guy who's writing the book
like writes a long draft of the book but in
article for him, and they publish it. And the words
that remade America as the name of the article and
(03:18):
the book by a guy named Gary Wills, and he
says like, yeah, Abraham, Abraham Lincoln was a tenor who
had a voice that you could very easily describe as shrill.
I remember when I saw the first trailer for the
Lincoln movie. I think, like most people, like, the Internet
kind of blew up. The next day was like, what
(03:38):
is going on with Daniel Day? Lewis. Hey, guys, I'm
Abraham Lincoln. Um, so you did not see it not yet,
you know. Here was my deal. I thought it was
quite dull, and I went into it expecting a bit
more of a profile on Abraham Lincoln life. Isn't it
(04:01):
more like about a two week period or something. It's
really about, uh, trying to get him now, it's trying
to get the vote passed. Um. I just can't remember
the exact amendment or whatever. That that shows how much
I was checked out. It was a very, very in
(04:22):
depth look at the process of passing like legislation. It
was kind of dull for then. That's just me, like,
where's all the action? Yeah, where's that shootout that Abraham Lincoln?
I want to run around with the sword free enslaves.
I think that's Abraham Lincoln vampire hunter that you'd like.
(04:43):
I probably should have seen that one instead. But I mean,
Daniel Dey Lewis is great. It was just a little
dull for my taste. So I'm in the minority. But
this was just like sliding on an old suit then
reading this article right like you're familiar with all this
an old boring suit a little bit and I want
to be a Civil war off. I keep trying to, like,
I hope work myself into it. Like reading. I got
(05:04):
a book given to me, one of those big, huge books. Oh,
and it just like I just can't quite crack it.
Have you tried World War two? Maybe that's more of
your fancy. No, I just I need to buff it up,
you know, civil war buff because I do recreate stuff. No,
although I did to see uh. I did a hike
at Sweetwater Creek State Park this weekend and they were Um,
(05:29):
I didn't know it was a deal. I was walking
down the wooded path and there was a camp with
a bunch of Union soldiers and their ladies and authentic
garb sitting around the campfire. And I was like, what's
going on? Because it wasn't a big reenactment, like a
big battle thing. It was just a Saturday night. I
(05:50):
don't know, man. They were just looked like they were
just camping in in period costume. Maybe they had practice
that day. Maybe that's weird. I thought it was interesting.
They were young soldiers too. Um did they pretend you
were a time traveler? They did. I showed them my
iPhone and they're like, what Devil's man did uh anyway,
(06:12):
it was just weird. Well let's talk about let me
ask you this. I have another question. Did you have
to memorize the Gettysburg address? Because this article on the
site basically says that all students had to and I
don't know that that's now. I don't know anybody who
had to memorize the Gettysburg Address. Now, we had to
remember a part of Caesar's address for English class. I
(06:36):
come to barry Caesar, not to praise him, blah blah
blah and the whole deal. Friends, Romans, countrymen. I memorize
that in high school? Did you have to or did
you just do it on your own? I was just bored,
Like I was playing basketball one day, decided to stop
and I'm trying to think what I had to remember
that I had to memorize that, which, now that I'm older,
I think that is like, what a terrible way to teach.
(07:00):
It is like memorize this these words only like there
was They'll have no meaning for you what the thing meant? Really,
it was just like recite this I had to remember. Um,
I had to memorized the song Surrey with the fringe
on top. For a transportation play in sixth grade. Chicks
and Geese and Chicks and Ducks and Geese sped scurry
(07:22):
when I take you out in Massuri, When I take
you wout in Massouri with the fringe on top. Very nice.
I was not expecting that. In this episode. Terry's over
here just snickering because we haven't started yet. Alright, So
the Gettysburg Address is a surprisingly small document. That's one
(07:44):
of the reasons why apparently school children have to memorize
it because it's just short. But it would not be
hyperbolic to say that it change the tone of American
politics forever from this very short speech that Abraham Lincoln
gave on the Gettysburg battlefield when it was being dedicated
as a national cemetery. Yeah, so let's let's talk a
(08:07):
bit about the background. What was going on that day
in November was like, you said, we're gonna open up
this brand new national cemetery Pennsylvania where so many people
died at the Battle of Gettysburg. Yeah, I know a
lot of them died. Yeah. From July one to July three,
eight sixty three, Roberty Lee and the Confederate Army budded
(08:29):
heads with the Army of the Potomac. Um. I think
there were soldiers from like Ohio, New York, um, a
couple of other states. It was. It was a lot
of troops under George Mead, General George Mead, it was
a new general at the time. Um southwest of Harrisburg.
It was like one of the it might have been
(08:49):
the first battle fought in the north. Yeah, there weren't
a lot of northern battles. Do you ever read the
Confederate markers here in Atlanta? Here are there? They're all
over the yeh, Like it's it's just kind of weird sometimes,
like to drive a mile from my house and see, like, well,
this is where so and so pushed back an army
of a thousand, like right where this playground is very strange,
(09:12):
like every ten ft there's one down here. Yeah. Um,
but like you said, not a lot of battles up north. Um.
This was the This was one of the key battles
that really swung the tide in favor of the North.
And it was the bloodiest, one of the bloodiest affairs
in American history for sure, maybe human history really. I'm
sure it was up there there, I'm there. It was
(09:33):
probably beaten by some World War two battles for sure,
but this is probably still up there with one of them. Yeah,
did the Civil warhead the highest casualties of any war?
Or it was the first it when the Civil War
took place, they had more casualties in all of their
preceding wars. Put together some some nuts so statistic like that.
(09:57):
I'm really curious what the trajector trajector of the country
would have been had that not happened, especially, Yeah, it
probably would have just been two different countries. Do you
think it would have been. I mean, the South is
just like worth the seating and the North has said no,
you're not. And had the North just been like all right,
good luck, it would have just been to the country,
(10:18):
I think, I mean, go back even further, and what
if there was no What if it was just a
unified country from the beginning, Like what would the American
South be like if they never would have been like,
you know what, we're seating? What if it was truly
a United States? I don't know, because the the when
you asked that question, you're asking like, would could the
(10:38):
issue of slavery, this huge divisive issue that was that
people really felt strongly on either side ending the center
to they were pretty strong feelings like could it have
been resolved in any other way besides war? I don't know. Yeah,
that's a great question. I'll bet there's historians out there
who have tried to figure it out. Well. It always
cracks me up to when you hear people in the
(11:01):
South still say like it was about states rights. I'm like, yeah,
states rights to own slaves exactly. Or they call it
the War of Northern Aggression. Yeah, I mean there was,
there was obviously more to a dance slavery, but that
you're fooling yourself if you don't think that was the
key driving component. Definitely was anyway. Um so Roberty Lee
goes up against the army of the Potomac. There were, uh,
(11:23):
and of course the range is is estimated, but twenty
three thousand dead Union casualties, which is a quarter of
the Union army, one quarter, not just the people who
are fighting in getting back the whole Union army Confederates,
which is a third of the Confederate army. Incredible, and
this is over. I did some calculations and there were
(11:44):
three days. That is every five seconds someone dying but
that's if the battle raged for every sects, which obviously
it didn't know, but every five seconds somebody died in
that crazy seven men per hour. Uh In in the
first two days, thirty five thousand died in the first
two days. So that was like the bloodiest two days
(12:06):
of any American conflict, if I'm not mistaken. So it
was a It was a big deal. And it was
not just a big deal in the number of casualties.
It was a big deal in the fact that the
North won this battle, that it was a Northern battle. Um,
because up to this point the Confederacy had been beating
the North pretty badly as far as if you were
(12:29):
looking at it as a battle by battle, if you're
just taking number of battles one to the South was
winning the Civil War at the time, and Abraham Lincoln
was fairly determined to use this occasion to help reinvigorate
support for the war in the North. Yeah. So Lee loses,
retreats to Virginia on July four and and he tried
(12:51):
to resign because he tried to and Jefferson Davis said, no,
thank you, I got nobody better than you. Um, he
was not pursued which was Um. Lincoln didn't like that,
and other Northern generals did not like the fact that
Mead didn't like put the pedal to the metal at
that point. Yeah, because he could have ended the war. Yeah,
conceivably had he kickn out Lee's army the rest of
(13:13):
it or captured him like, that would have been the
end of the Civil War right there. Um. And this
guy's like sitting there getting his nails to it, lollygagging.
So in the days following the Battle of Gettysburg, the
Union soldiers were quickly buried the ones that were immediately
dead uh and poorly marked pauper's graves basically um, or
(13:36):
maybe not pauper's graves, but not what they deserved. They
were temporary graves. They were battlefield graves. Uh. And so
this man named David Wills, he was an attorney in
the area, said you know what, we need uh to
do this right and he spearheaded the effort of the
National UH Cemetery with the Gettysburg Cemetery Commission. It was
the first kickstarter back in eighteen sixty three. UM. So
(13:59):
he said, you know what they're this guy uh, Eddie Everett,
you know him as Edward. He's sort of a rock
star speaker. Former Secretary of State, former senator, president of
Harvard College. This dude brings the house down. Let's get
him in here, because this guy can go for like
(14:19):
two hours straight without notes, without notes, and just like
the most flowery prose and he remembered every word of it.
Two hour long speeches that were just amazing, speeches that
held crowds and wrapped and he had no notes in
front of him. Yeah, and so they agreed to delay
it a little bit so he could be booked because
I guess he had another engagement. No, he said, this
(14:41):
is great, but I need more than a month prepare
a two hour eight. He wanted to do research. It
was so soon after the war or after the battle
that they dedicated it as a cemetery that um, the
official accounts or even like nonofficial accounts hadn't really started
to emerge yet. So he actually had to do his
own in reviews with people who were there to gather
(15:02):
like the information they needed to do a great speech
on it. Well, yeah, because part of a large part
of his speech was um Like in our article, they
said it was sort of like watching a a TV
like dateline or he had to recap the battle for
everyone because you know, Twitter was down and no one
knew what was going on. And he actually he had
(15:25):
a he had credit as a battle field order. He'd
given battle um a speeches that like bunker Hill and conquered.
And actually, when this guy came to town and spoke
at your battlefield, your battlefield was world famous from that
moment on. That's how big a deal Edward ever. It was. Yeah,
in fact, he was so big of a deal. They waited,
like we said, because he wasn't ready, and then said, oh,
(15:47):
unless also invite President Lincoln, so speak for a couple
of minutes. And apparently they that was Lincoln took no
offense to it. That was totally normal at the time.
It's like a ceremonial thing, it was. And and this
was being conducted by the state of Pennsylvania, so at
the time you didn't really expect much federal involvement or support.
(16:08):
But they're like, no, this is a big enough deal.
We we want to invite the executive branch. That is correct, sir,
So you want to take a break real quick, Yeah,
let's do it, okay, alright, So Chuck um Lincoln actually
(16:37):
was scheduled to leave at six am the morning of
the dedication ceremony, right, and he in the town on
the same day as the show. Yeah, like noon, yes,
which was plenty of time, something we don't even like
to do when we have our shows. So it's cut.
It's cutting a little close, um, but it can be done.
And he's the president and he's got a war to conduct,
(16:58):
so no one expected him to come in early. Lincoln
actually overrode um that schedule and said, no, I'm going
in the day before. This is important. I don't want
to miss it all together because this is a town
of and they're expecting fifteen thousand people to come to
this dedication. Right, So he left the day before, um,
(17:19):
and he was put up at that lawyer's house. Will
Willis I can't remember his first name, or Wills Wills
who wrote the thing. No, he said, no, no relation.
He's also not like a vampire. He's still alive. He
wrote the first hand account, right. Um. But he spends
(17:40):
the night at that lawyer's house and there was like
this town is just packed. But the fact that that
Lincoln wanted to do this badly enough that he went
early um shows that this is this meant something to
him people for back then, that's a large crowd, and
I wondered how in the world old who who hears
(18:02):
this thing the first about people? That was apparently another
advantage of Lincoln Shrill voices that he could project it
or really far. Yeah, but not to fifteen thousand. Come on,
I don't know. I would imagine that they had better
hearing back then, because they had to and because they
had fewer like artificial devices that were damaging their hearing. Probably,
(18:24):
I think everything I just totally made that. It extends
it a few more feet, but I imagine ten thousand
of those fifteen were like what do you say? What
do you say? Or maybe it's like a Montyon skit
and they're relaying it back and it changes each time,
like Occupy Wall Street thing. Yeah. So, uh, he gets
there the day before, and he was quite right. There
(18:48):
were plenty of dignitaries that were supposed to be there
that waited to leave that morning and Um didn't. They
missed the whole thing because they were just late. So
the day of the thing, they they dedication. Um Everett
gives his speech and it just it brings the house down.
It's exactly what everybody expects. Yeah, and the guy who
wrote this article pointed out that I would have been
(19:10):
bored to tears for a two hour speech, but apparently
at the time that was like entertainments. People were crazy
for the stuff. Yeah, the longer the better. Yeah. She
said that they had a much longer attention span because
they hadn't been corrupted by television. Yeah, that's a bit
of a leap, but sure it makes sense then. Yeah,
remember short attention span theater and comedy Central that great. Um. So,
(19:36):
Lincoln gives his speech, and a lot of hay has
been made over the last century or almost well century
and a half of the difference in length between Lincoln's statement,
Lincoln's addressed, and Everet's addressed, But it's like there's really
no point in comparing them in that sense. No one
expected Lincoln to speak for a very long time. They
(19:57):
expected him to dedicate the thing with some short remarks,
and that Everett was going to give like a two
hour speech. So this didn't surprise anybody at the time.
It just seems like in retrospect, when you compare the
two and the power and the everlasting nous of of
the two speeches that went that it's like, wow, he
did this in only two minutes, wherever it took two hours. Yeah,
(20:20):
I think you said two different things. Yeah, but it's
a it's a myth that it was like. People were like,
I can't believe that was so short. That's all they
were expecting, agreed, Um, And in fact, it was so short.
Here's a nice little tidbit I thought, Uh, the official
photographer for the event, Um, you know, it takes a
minute to get things set up when you're taking pictures
(20:40):
back then you're not just snapping away. And uh, he
took these pictures of Everett and was getting ready to
take pictures of Lincoln and then got everything set and
Lincoln like is walking off with the mic drop. Basically,
that may be a myth as well. I think it's
a great story. It is a fantastic story. There's a
ton of great stories out of here, Like he wrote
(21:01):
the thing on the on the back of an envelope
on the train ride there. Supposedly not true because he
was very well known as a he was a practice
order is a lawyer to start out with. He apparently
poured over his speeches, so the fact that he went
a day early to this um and he he decided
(21:23):
he wanted to use this occasion to help drum up
support for the war. He almost certainly wrote at least
a draft in Washington before he left. Yeah, that's what
they think is that he wrote most of it, if
not all of it, and then continue to work on
it on the train. But I don't think there was
ever an envelope involved, correct, I don't think so. He
(21:45):
had his traveling secretary or is his full time secretary
with him, John Hey, Yeah, John Hay uh ran it
by him, I guess, yeah, And he was like Pravovo,
another great one, and he went thank you. They sipped
their tea in stony silence for the rest of the train. Right,
(22:07):
had a weird relationship. So should we read this thing? Oh? Also,
this is where you know that whole thing was like,
was Abraham Lincoln gay? He shared a bed with a man?
I had never heard that. Oh yeah. There was a
very uh well read biography that came out years back, um,
within the two thousand sometime on Abraham lincol really popular,
(22:29):
and in it the biographer is talking about how, um,
I think at the Gettysburg address he shared a bed
with the man. And one of the reasons why, well,
the reason why was because the town was packed, right,
The town was so packed that even the President of
United States had to share a bed with somebody because
there was just nowhere else for people to be. The
(22:51):
guy who designed the cemetery had to sleep sitting up
in somebody's like front room, in a chair that night
the night before the dedication, because the town was so
packed at the girls. But there was this whole like,
was they Lincoln gay? He was an entire book not
about him being gay. It was mentioned in that people
read the book and then started talking about whether he
(23:11):
was because my book would say it was President Lincoln gay,
and you would open it up and said who cares?
At the end, it would be like, why did they
print a thousand plank pages after that Civil War book? Yeah? Exactly,
it's gotta be four inches thick, and they make great doorstops. Uh.
Should we read the Singing full? Yeah, with a little music,
(23:34):
maybe some something patriotic? Yeah? I think we should split
it in half, though, as we uh do with our
havween readings. Should we What are we going with her?
Yakety Sachs I think we used Oh Tannenbaum, Oh tan
Obama would be good. All right, Well, we'll see. Is
Jerry's choice? Jerry surprised us? Do you want to start
(23:55):
or finish? Uh? I will art because I have a
feeling you're gonna do better than me. Is that better
to finish? Then? Okay, go ahead. Four score I'm just kidding. Sorry.
Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth
(24:17):
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
(24:39):
of that field as a final resting place for those
who here gave their lives that this 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 hollow this ground. The brave men, living and dead,
who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor
(25:01):
power to add or detract. That was wonderful, It was okay,
all right, I'm gonna bring it home. Should I do
it in a high bits? Now, that's why I figured
I should go first. Let's bringing the helium. Uh, here
we go. The world will little note nor long remember
what we say here, but it can never forget what
(25:21):
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
(25:42):
gave the last full measure of devotion. That we here
highly resolved 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. Boom
(26:04):
abe out and he dropped his mike. It really is
at the modern the modern description of this speech is
that it's a mic drop. Two hundred and seventy two,
two seventy three depends on what version you're looking at.
Words under two minutes is all he needed. Under two minutes,
(26:25):
and he was even interrupted with applause five times, and
it still only took two minutes. And when when he
when he said this, chuck. When he gave the speech,
it was totally in contrast with the way politicians are
any order at the time, spoke the two hour spiel.
That ever, gave a lot of raw raw stuff that
(26:47):
was the standard standard stuff, flowery language, lots of lofty
rhetoric while admonishing the Confederacy. Admonishing is that the right word? Yeah? Um,
just a really kind of a rousing type of thing.
But the idea that you that a politician would get
up and give a plain spoken speech was new as
(27:10):
of the moment Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address. The guy,
the author, Gary Wills, the historian, not the lawyer who
set the whole thing up allegedly. Um, not the same guy.
He points out that, Um, uh Everett, that's the first name, Edward.
Edward Everett gave his speech at the last moment in
(27:32):
history when it was customary to give a speech like that.
Because Abraham Lincoln got on stage right after that and
changed it forever in the opposite direction. And they say that, um,
he changed American speech for not just like speaking, that's
his oration, but also writing, and that Mark Twain's modern
(27:52):
novel Huckleberry Finn, the first modern novel um followed in
the footsteps of the Gettysburg Address or the way of
speaking and talking that Lincoln laid down in the Gettysburg Address,
like he just changed everything. Wow, yeah, all right, well
let's take another break because I have to reflect on that.
You just laid down some heavy stuff. And uh, we'll
(28:14):
finish up after this speech. Changer, who was That's what
(28:35):
you said? Changer? Um? And it was amazing. And and
whoever wrote our article? Who was that? Uh? Tiffany Connor.
Tiffany Connor, she's great. Um. She points out that it
was a time when, um, they were starting to send
messages via telegraph, so that also tied end and that
(28:59):
people we're trying to get to the point a little quicker,
I think because of the telegraph. And I started talking
to somebody to snap your fingers, like come on, yeah,
like you're sitting a telegraph and you gentlemen on this
day and they're like all right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I
need to go to the bathroom. That's what I'm trying
to say. So they were just striving for a more
(29:20):
concise language. And I think Lincoln really like put a
uh he dotted the eye, maybe even cross the tea
as well. Yeah, and said like this is a better
way to talk. And it sounds even a little flowery
to us, but like we should have read parts of
Everett speech. That's where we failed. We failed pretty badly. Um, alright,
(29:42):
So what else was different about it? It was, Um,
it was a pretty radical idea at the time too,
because what he kind of did with his speech, well,
not what kind of did. What he very much did
was say, let's take a big picture of view of
this thing. And and they point out he doesn't talk
about slavery or the Confederate army or the Union army. Um.
(30:04):
He talks about things in very broad terms and basically says,
you know what, the Declaration of Independence was the bomb.
That was the deal, the real deal, and the Constitution
is the means by which we serve that document. Because
at the time there were southerns going old slavery is
(30:24):
not even in the Constitution, right, it was very much
If not that the Constitution was the guiding document of
the United States government, then at least no one was
saying that the Declaration of Independence was Lincoln was basically
saying with the speech he was reframing it. He was saying, no,
it's the in the Declaration of Independence laid out the ideals.
(30:47):
The Constitution is just the vehicle you used to get
to those ideals. And let's all remember that in the
Declaration of Independence it talks about all men being created
equal and in today's modern world where it's gonna substitute
men with humans. Yeah, and and even at the time
it was obviously people weren't so far along that Lincoln
(31:09):
was like, you know, and slaves should be completely equal
to us starting today. Like it was even a process
for the North to to bring about equality over time.
But just the notion that we deserve everyone is born
and deserves equality was a radical idea at the time. Yeah,
(31:30):
and so, I mean, it's really worth As I was
researching this, I had to go back and reread the
address a couple of times, and once I did, it
really started to sink in. Yeah, finally, now and almost
my fortieth year on this planet, I can understand the
Gettysburg Address. It should not be teaching this to school children.
It's totally meaningless to them or to break it down
(31:51):
sentence by sentence and really explain it. Sure, okay, you
know if you have like you know, um, the poet Society,
teacher or Captain Mike Captain, who was the guy that
Matthew Perry played ron somebody Chandler b Chandler bing. It
was a different role. This is a teacher, like a
really inspirational teacher and something. Yeah, um, you're thinking almost
(32:17):
that was the Malagro beanfield War. No, that was Alabamba. Man,
we got off track. What was my point that Matthew
Perry was the best friend? Oh that like, this doesn't
mean anything to school children. But one of the reasons
why is not because it's above their heads, because this
(32:38):
is the way we see America now. But the reason
we see America in America government and the idea that
it's by the people, of the people, for the people,
and that people are created equal, and that was the
ideals of the Founding the Founding fathers were laid out
in the Declaration of Independence and then that's the true
guiding document. Um. The reason we see these things is
because of the gettysburgherge us in these two hundred and
(33:01):
seventy two wish words. He changed the way that all
Americans from that point forward saw America. And as a
matter of fact, um. Again, Gary Wills points out that
prior to the Gettysburg Address, people referred to the United
States in the plural form, like the United States are
a great place to visit. Um. Afterwards a collection of states. Yes,
(33:23):
And afterwards it became single and unified and a singular noun,
the United States is a great place to visit. That
came after the Gettysburg Address, except for these states. Right
steer clear of these. Um. I had a great Shakespeare
teacher in college that man. I wish I could remember
his name, because I would shout him out. But he
(33:44):
you know, Shakespeare's tough for most people. Um. He literally
every day in class we would sit down. I think
we went through like three plays a year or a
quarter in one class, and we would just read the thing.
And he would stop about every thirty seconds say here's
what that means. Here's what he's saying, and we will go, oh,
(34:05):
that's what that means. Then we would read the next section.
Someone to read it. He go, here's what that means
he's really saying, And he would really put it in
like terms college kids can understand, like, you know when
your friend does this, and that's what's happening here with
with with Horatio, and um, it was just like it
blew my mind because we all left with complete full
(34:26):
understanding of like three plays at a time and would
scramble to like sign up for his his Shakespeare two
class because he was so awesome, and I just I
don't know, it seems like such an effective way to
teach when you're talking about this these old languages. You
can sit around and read Chaucer all day and unless
someone's explaining, like what what it means? Because these stories
(34:47):
are wonderful, amazing stories in particular too. Yeah, but if
you don't get it, you don't, it's not hitting home.
You gotta like liken it to something that they identify
with or basically completely master old or Middle English. Yeah,
who wants to do that? That's sneat man. I wish
you could remember the guys thinking is it Mr Ames,
Mr Barr? I think it was Mr Carr, Dr byng dr.
(35:11):
That's okay. So these days the Gettysburg address, there are
a few different versions of it. There were at least five,
they believe versions, and I think two of them now
actually written down versions are the Library of Congress. Are
they on display? They're probably on display, right sure? Or
(35:31):
you can just be like, let me see one of
the Gettysburg addresses and they'll run off and get it. Yeah,
you just gotta put a fifty in their front pocket. Uh.
So you can actually look at these and they're mostly
the same except for just some little revisions here and there.
Then he made I guess post um. Yeah, yeah, because
because he knew the document would live on and if
(35:52):
they had dressed this is this confused me for a second.
I had to wrap my head around it. If he
had dressed before then it would have proven unequivocally that
he had written it before he was on the train.
But the fact that myth is still around is because
there's no fact to counterbalance it. So that means that
all the drafts came after. There are copies that he
made that imagine his secretary wrote down himself. I think
(36:15):
he gave them some to him. But yeah, I'm sure
John Hay was responsible for it. But John Hay had
one that is in the Library of Congress, right, Yeah.
But it's funny that you don't think about like any
like four copies of this, So start writing right, you know,
get out the pin and would a kill you to
draw some rabbits doing some weird things in the margins.
So what about the reaction? Um, I think there's been
(36:37):
a lot of disagreement depending on who you talked to.
Some people say it in the moment at the place,
it wasn't super well received, but other people are saying like, no,
that's a myth. Yeah, apparently it's another big myth that
especially he walked off and was like, man, they really
hated that I blew it. Yeah, he he knew that
(36:58):
it did exactly what he wanted it too. Yeah, he
wanted to drop the mic and he did, and supposedly
the crowd was pretty happy with it. And people are like,
why do you drop that corn cob? Why was he
talking into it the whole time? And why did it
amplify his voice? That was the most surprising part. Uh, Well,
who cares if they liked it or not at the time.
(37:18):
We love it now, yeah, go crazy over it. Clearly
we've been like breathlessly talking about how great the Gettysburg
addresses this whole time. We haven't even entertained the other
side that it sucked. You know what else we didn't
do was the very thing we said it would be
a great way to teach people. We should have read
it and after every few sentences broken down what it meant.
(37:40):
That's not our job. All right, We're not gonna do
all the work. Do you want to know? Okay, we'll
let the teachers do it. Yeah. I encourage this should
be in classrooms. Did we say anything really bad in
this one? Yeah? This is a teaching aid. Watch this
turn record over now remember that? Oh yeah? Okay. Uh.
(38:01):
If you want to know more about the Gettysburg address,
ask your teacher and you can also go on to
our great website how Stuff Works dot com and type
in Gettysburg address. No h at the end, we're not
in Scotland. Nope, and uh, since I said Scotland, it's
time for a listener mail. By the way, quickly, I uh,
(38:22):
after the other day talking about the Brules rules on sushi,
I went and watch it again like three times. Yeah,
I still haven't seen it. Did you? Did you watch
bag Boy? That that one? Listening? Now? I still didn't know.
I looked it up. I haven't sitting on a Google search.
I haven't had time to give any attention to it.
I remember what it was specifically about it that really
(38:42):
killed me was is that he says shush said the sushi,
and the intros saying like, we have a chef here
to make some delicious sushi sandwiches. Sushi sandwiches. All right.
This is from I know you remember Kathleen of Cooper Cats,
(39:04):
the PR Agency, former PR. Yes, many years ago, We've
farmed out our PR to this great company New York,
Cooper Cats, and Kathleen worked there, still does, and she
was awesome and super nice. And she wrote this in
about something she's working on this year to her heart,
which I think is pretty important, Hey guys. And she
(39:26):
had some nice things to say early on wowry rhetoric
like Edward just catching up with us. But I won't
bore you with that. Um hey guys. Uh, it wasn't
boring to us, by the way, I just don't want
to you know. Um Hey, guys. I was writing because
of one of our clients nowadays is Memorial Sloan Kettering
Cancer Center. Are there, the oldest and largest private cancer
center in the US, And we're beginning a big public awareness,
(39:48):
slash press, push around misconceptions um and misperceptions and miss
about clinical trials that people have about them. While this
is for a client, it's really important to me. I've
learned a lot of things. One, only four of patients
participate in clinical trials. Wow, it's alarmingly low, even though
(40:11):
they are the root of every current in future advance
and treatment. People have negative impressions of clinical trials, and
that changes as soon as they learn more about them.
Other things I learned through my work with msk UM
things I learned about my work with Memorial Sloan Kettering
I had no idea about before the trials. Uh. They
are not just for last resorts clinical trials. Many of
(40:32):
the best treatments are offered early in treatment through clinical
trial participation. Clinical trials are much more targeted today Uh.
Through genetic screening, tumor testing, and precision medicine. Doctors have
a much better grasp but what works and what will not.
Almost no clinical trials for cancer and volve placebos. Uh.
Though most people are concerned about this like yeah, like
(40:54):
I don't want to I want the drug yeah, um,
yeah exactly. And cost is a huge concern for people
thinking about and rolling and yet almost all out of
pocket costs for treatment are covered. Uh so that is
from Kathleen, and she makes some good points there, she does,
and I never really thought about it. I think we
just got pard. We did ps If you happen to
(41:15):
need a good cry uh memorial Sloan Kettering, and I
do not. By the way, Kathleen, they just wrapped up
a two week partnership with Humans of New York. To
that website. Man, they're great. It's an incredible photo documentary
of the world of pediatric cancer. Uh so many of
the miracles documented were results of clinical trials, is why
(41:36):
I'm so passionate about pushing this information. And Kathleen just
had her second little bab congratulations and uh important stuff.
So look into clinical trials and maybe we should do
a show on them one day. We definitely should be.
I really am surprised that we haven't already have we not?
We did on human experimentation, but we've probably talked more
(41:58):
about the sordid side of it, like boo section, the
gruesome Oh yeah, we did, and we talked about, like
you know, the regulations on people who are human guinea pig. Yeah,
we should. We will do one on Clinical Trump. Yeah.
So that's awesome, Kathleen. It's cool when you can do
work that you can PR with a good feeling. And
we're sorry about URPR episode. I'm not. I stand by that. No,
(42:20):
I think it's great episode, but it probably should have
been called the Legend of Edward Burnet's and less. This
is what PR is like. It was a fun episode,
isn't it. It surely was. If you want to know
more about us, you can hang out with us on
Twitter at s Y s K podcast. Same goes for Instagram,
where you can see pictures of our pets and stuff
(42:40):
like that. You can also hang out with us on
Facebook at Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know,
and you can send us emails to stuff podcast at
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at our home on the Web, our playhouse for the
Internet Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on
(43:03):
this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works
dot com.
Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast on
Josh Clark And that's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over
there and this is Stuff You Should Know podcast the
NPR edition. Bob Ross. Oh Man, there's a documentary out
(00:26):
about him. Yeah, I haven't seen it, but I will forture.
Oh speaking up, can't wait. I saw Blood Support for
the first time in my life the other week. The movie. Yes,
have you seen it? Oh, Chuck, I mean that's all
parts of it, but I love every second of that movie.
(00:46):
It was so great. They basically made a movie to
show that John Claude Van Dam can do like crazy splits.
They made a movie for that. Yeah, the only version
I would watch of that would be like the riff
tracks version. Don't you don't even a need riff tracks? Yeah,
but they make everything better, sure of course they do.
But I would love to see a riff tracks Blood Sport.
I'm just saying it's a pretty great movie we're seeing. Yeah,
(01:09):
the bad guy in it is just terrifying because he's
like so clearly insane and like dangerous. Yeah, Like this
guy is operating on a level. No one else in
the movie, including surprisingly Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds,
is operating on it. He's the trusty sidekick. What happened
(01:31):
to Jean Claude? He's still around. I think he's all
over like Twitter. Well, I think he's like a couple
of times a day tweets like, hey, it's me Jean
Claude vandam remember Uh, well he had that big commercial
that was out not too long ago, and that where
he did a split between like two trucks or something,
(01:51):
um like with one leg on each truck, like driving
down the road, if I remember correct. He's reading his kindle?
Is it a kindle? Lad I think so? And I
think I didn't see him, but he's he's got to
be in one of those dumb what are the movies
with all the people with Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis and
uh the Last Temptation of Christ. Yeah, yeah, he's in
(02:13):
one of those ladies. Oh Red, No, Yes, he's got
to be in one of those, right probably he would
literally be the only person of that elk in those movies.
I hope he is. Yeah, me too. I saw Red
the other day for the first time too. That's pretty entertaining, wasn't.
Yeah I haven't seen those either, some stuff just you know, yeah,
(02:36):
let's get serious, Chuck all right, yeah, okay, alright, we
talked about Jean Claude Van Damn and that can only
mean one thing. Gettysburg address, right, that's right. Man. Uh, well,
he's a better question. Okay. Have you you saw Lincoln?
Didn't you? I did? I didn't you didn't. I know
(02:57):
enough to know why we were talking like this. Supposedly
that is an accurate depiction of Abraham Lincoln speaking voice. Yeah.
I read this article in the Atlantic. It was one
of those things where the guy who's writing the book
like writes a long draft of the book but in
article for him, and they publish it. And the words
that remade America as the name of the article and
(03:18):
the book by a guy named Gary Wills, and he
says like, yeah, Abraham, Abraham Lincoln was a tenor who
had a voice that you could very easily describe as shrill.
I remember when I saw the first trailer for the
Lincoln movie. I think, like most people, like, the Internet
kind of blew up. The next day was like, what
(03:38):
is going on with Daniel Day? Lewis. Hey, guys, I'm
Abraham Lincoln. Um, so you did not see it not yet,
you know. Here was my deal. I thought it was
quite dull, and I went into it expecting a bit
more of a profile on Abraham Lincoln life. Isn't it
(04:01):
more like about a two week period or something. It's
really about, uh, trying to get him now, it's trying
to get the vote passed. Um. I just can't remember
the exact amendment or whatever. That that shows how much
I was checked out. It was a very, very in
(04:22):
depth look at the process of passing like legislation. It
was kind of dull for then. That's just me, like,
where's all the action? Yeah, where's that shootout that Abraham Lincoln?
I want to run around with the sword free enslaves.
I think that's Abraham Lincoln vampire hunter that you'd like.
(04:43):
I probably should have seen that one instead. But I mean,
Daniel Dey Lewis is great. It was just a little
dull for my taste. So I'm in the minority. But
this was just like sliding on an old suit then
reading this article right like you're familiar with all this
an old boring suit a little bit and I want
to be a Civil war off. I keep trying to, like,
I hope work myself into it. Like reading. I got
(05:04):
a book given to me, one of those big, huge books. Oh,
and it just like I just can't quite crack it.
Have you tried World War two? Maybe that's more of
your fancy. No, I just I need to buff it up,
you know, civil war buff because I do recreate stuff. No,
although I did to see uh. I did a hike
at Sweetwater Creek State Park this weekend and they were Um,
(05:29):
I didn't know it was a deal. I was walking
down the wooded path and there was a camp with
a bunch of Union soldiers and their ladies and authentic
garb sitting around the campfire. And I was like, what's
going on? Because it wasn't a big reenactment, like a
big battle thing. It was just a Saturday night. I
(05:50):
don't know, man. They were just looked like they were
just camping in in period costume. Maybe they had practice
that day. Maybe that's weird. I thought it was interesting.
They were young soldiers too. Um did they pretend you
were a time traveler? They did. I showed them my
iPhone and they're like, what Devil's man did uh anyway,
(06:12):
it was just weird. Well let's talk about let me
ask you this. I have another question. Did you have
to memorize the Gettysburg address? Because this article on the
site basically says that all students had to and I
don't know that that's now. I don't know anybody who
had to memorize the Gettysburg Address. Now, we had to
remember a part of Caesar's address for English class. I
(06:36):
come to barry Caesar, not to praise him, blah blah
blah and the whole deal. Friends, Romans, countrymen. I memorize
that in high school? Did you have to or did
you just do it on your own? I was just bored,
Like I was playing basketball one day, decided to stop
and I'm trying to think what I had to remember
that I had to memorize that, which, now that I'm older,
I think that is like, what a terrible way to teach.
(07:00):
It is like memorize this these words only like there
was They'll have no meaning for you what the thing meant? Really,
it was just like recite this I had to remember. Um,
I had to memorized the song Surrey with the fringe
on top. For a transportation play in sixth grade. Chicks
and Geese and Chicks and Ducks and Geese sped scurry
(07:22):
when I take you out in Massuri, When I take
you wout in Massouri with the fringe on top. Very nice.
I was not expecting that. In this episode. Terry's over
here just snickering because we haven't started yet. Alright, So
the Gettysburg Address is a surprisingly small document. That's one
(07:44):
of the reasons why apparently school children have to memorize
it because it's just short. But it would not be
hyperbolic to say that it change the tone of American
politics forever from this very short speech that Abraham Lincoln
gave on the Gettysburg battlefield when it was being dedicated
as a national cemetery. Yeah, so let's let's talk a
(08:07):
bit about the background. What was going on that day
in November was like, you said, we're gonna open up
this brand new national cemetery Pennsylvania where so many people
died at the Battle of Gettysburg. Yeah, I know a
lot of them died. Yeah. From July one to July three,
eight sixty three, Roberty Lee and the Confederate Army budded
(08:29):
heads with the Army of the Potomac. Um. I think
there were soldiers from like Ohio, New York, um, a
couple of other states. It was. It was a lot
of troops under George Mead, General George Mead, it was
a new general at the time. Um southwest of Harrisburg.
It was like one of the it might have been
(08:49):
the first battle fought in the north. Yeah, there weren't
a lot of northern battles. Do you ever read the
Confederate markers here in Atlanta? Here are there? They're all
over the yeh, Like it's it's just kind of weird sometimes,
like to drive a mile from my house and see, like, well,
this is where so and so pushed back an army
of a thousand, like right where this playground is very strange,
(09:12):
like every ten ft there's one down here. Yeah. Um,
but like you said, not a lot of battles up north. Um.
This was the This was one of the key battles
that really swung the tide in favor of the North.
And it was the bloodiest, one of the bloodiest affairs
in American history for sure, maybe human history really. I'm
sure it was up there there, I'm there. It was
(09:33):
probably beaten by some World War two battles for sure,
but this is probably still up there with one of them. Yeah,
did the Civil warhead the highest casualties of any war?
Or it was the first it when the Civil War
took place, they had more casualties in all of their
preceding wars. Put together some some nuts so statistic like that.
(09:57):
I'm really curious what the trajector trajector of the country
would have been had that not happened, especially, Yeah, it
probably would have just been two different countries. Do you
think it would have been. I mean, the South is
just like worth the seating and the North has said no,
you're not. And had the North just been like all right,
good luck, it would have just been to the country,
(10:18):
I think, I mean, go back even further, and what
if there was no What if it was just a
unified country from the beginning, Like what would the American
South be like if they never would have been like,
you know what, we're seating? What if it was truly
a United States? I don't know, because the the when
you asked that question, you're asking like, would could the
(10:38):
issue of slavery, this huge divisive issue that was that
people really felt strongly on either side ending the center
to they were pretty strong feelings like could it have
been resolved in any other way besides war? I don't know. Yeah,
that's a great question. I'll bet there's historians out there
who have tried to figure it out. Well. It always
cracks me up to when you hear people in the
(11:01):
South still say like it was about states rights. I'm like, yeah,
states rights to own slaves exactly. Or they call it
the War of Northern Aggression. Yeah, I mean there was,
there was obviously more to a dance slavery, but that
you're fooling yourself if you don't think that was the
key driving component. Definitely was anyway. Um so Roberty Lee
goes up against the army of the Potomac. There were, uh,
(11:23):
and of course the range is is estimated, but twenty
three thousand dead Union casualties, which is a quarter of
the Union army, one quarter, not just the people who
are fighting in getting back the whole Union army Confederates,
which is a third of the Confederate army. Incredible, and
this is over. I did some calculations and there were
(11:44):
three days. That is every five seconds someone dying but
that's if the battle raged for every sects, which obviously
it didn't know, but every five seconds somebody died in
that crazy seven men per hour. Uh In in the
first two days, thirty five thousand died in the first
two days. So that was like the bloodiest two days
(12:06):
of any American conflict, if I'm not mistaken. So it
was a It was a big deal. And it was
not just a big deal in the number of casualties.
It was a big deal in the fact that the
North won this battle, that it was a Northern battle. Um,
because up to this point the Confederacy had been beating
the North pretty badly as far as if you were
(12:29):
looking at it as a battle by battle, if you're
just taking number of battles one to the South was
winning the Civil War at the time, and Abraham Lincoln
was fairly determined to use this occasion to help reinvigorate
support for the war in the North. Yeah. So Lee loses,
retreats to Virginia on July four and and he tried
(12:51):
to resign because he tried to and Jefferson Davis said, no,
thank you, I got nobody better than you. Um, he
was not pursued which was Um. Lincoln didn't like that,
and other Northern generals did not like the fact that
Mead didn't like put the pedal to the metal at
that point. Yeah, because he could have ended the war. Yeah,
conceivably had he kickn out Lee's army the rest of
(13:13):
it or captured him like, that would have been the
end of the Civil War right there. Um. And this
guy's like sitting there getting his nails to it, lollygagging.
So in the days following the Battle of Gettysburg, the
Union soldiers were quickly buried the ones that were immediately
dead uh and poorly marked pauper's graves basically um, or
(13:36):
maybe not pauper's graves, but not what they deserved. They
were temporary graves. They were battlefield graves. Uh. And so
this man named David Wills, he was an attorney in
the area, said you know what, we need uh to
do this right and he spearheaded the effort of the
National UH Cemetery with the Gettysburg Cemetery Commission. It was
the first kickstarter back in eighteen sixty three. UM. So
(13:59):
he said, you know what they're this guy uh, Eddie Everett,
you know him as Edward. He's sort of a rock
star speaker. Former Secretary of State, former senator, president of
Harvard College. This dude brings the house down. Let's get
him in here, because this guy can go for like
(14:19):
two hours straight without notes, without notes, and just like
the most flowery prose and he remembered every word of it.
Two hour long speeches that were just amazing, speeches that
held crowds and wrapped and he had no notes in
front of him. Yeah, and so they agreed to delay
it a little bit so he could be booked because
I guess he had another engagement. No, he said, this
(14:41):
is great, but I need more than a month prepare
a two hour eight. He wanted to do research. It
was so soon after the war or after the battle
that they dedicated it as a cemetery that um, the
official accounts or even like nonofficial accounts hadn't really started
to emerge yet. So he actually had to do his
own in reviews with people who were there to gather
(15:02):
like the information they needed to do a great speech
on it. Well, yeah, because part of a large part
of his speech was um Like in our article, they
said it was sort of like watching a a TV
like dateline or he had to recap the battle for
everyone because you know, Twitter was down and no one
knew what was going on. And he actually he had
(15:25):
a he had credit as a battle field order. He'd
given battle um a speeches that like bunker Hill and conquered.
And actually, when this guy came to town and spoke
at your battlefield, your battlefield was world famous from that
moment on. That's how big a deal Edward ever. It was. Yeah,
in fact, he was so big of a deal. They waited,
like we said, because he wasn't ready, and then said, oh,
(15:47):
unless also invite President Lincoln, so speak for a couple
of minutes. And apparently they that was Lincoln took no
offense to it. That was totally normal at the time.
It's like a ceremonial thing, it was. And and this
was being conducted by the state of Pennsylvania, so at
the time you didn't really expect much federal involvement or support.
(16:08):
But they're like, no, this is a big enough deal.
We we want to invite the executive branch. That is correct, sir,
So you want to take a break real quick, Yeah,
let's do it, okay, alright, So Chuck um Lincoln actually
(16:37):
was scheduled to leave at six am the morning of
the dedication ceremony, right, and he in the town on
the same day as the show. Yeah, like noon, yes,
which was plenty of time, something we don't even like
to do when we have our shows. So it's cut.
It's cutting a little close, um, but it can be done.
And he's the president and he's got a war to conduct,
(16:58):
so no one expected him to come in early. Lincoln
actually overrode um that schedule and said, no, I'm going
in the day before. This is important. I don't want
to miss it all together because this is a town
of and they're expecting fifteen thousand people to come to
this dedication. Right, So he left the day before, um,
(17:19):
and he was put up at that lawyer's house. Will
Willis I can't remember his first name, or Wills Wills
who wrote the thing. No, he said, no, no relation.
He's also not like a vampire. He's still alive. He
wrote the first hand account, right. Um. But he spends
(17:40):
the night at that lawyer's house and there was like
this town is just packed. But the fact that that
Lincoln wanted to do this badly enough that he went
early um shows that this is this meant something to
him people for back then, that's a large crowd, and
I wondered how in the world old who who hears
(18:02):
this thing the first about people? That was apparently another
advantage of Lincoln Shrill voices that he could project it
or really far. Yeah, but not to fifteen thousand. Come on,
I don't know. I would imagine that they had better
hearing back then, because they had to and because they
had fewer like artificial devices that were damaging their hearing. Probably,
(18:24):
I think everything I just totally made that. It extends
it a few more feet, but I imagine ten thousand
of those fifteen were like what do you say? What
do you say? Or maybe it's like a Montyon skit
and they're relaying it back and it changes each time,
like Occupy Wall Street thing. Yeah. So, uh, he gets
there the day before, and he was quite right. There
(18:48):
were plenty of dignitaries that were supposed to be there
that waited to leave that morning and Um didn't. They
missed the whole thing because they were just late. So
the day of the thing, they they dedication. Um Everett
gives his speech and it just it brings the house down.
It's exactly what everybody expects. Yeah, and the guy who
wrote this article pointed out that I would have been
(19:10):
bored to tears for a two hour speech, but apparently
at the time that was like entertainments. People were crazy
for the stuff. Yeah, the longer the better. Yeah. She
said that they had a much longer attention span because
they hadn't been corrupted by television. Yeah, that's a bit
of a leap, but sure it makes sense then. Yeah,
remember short attention span theater and comedy Central that great. Um. So,
(19:36):
Lincoln gives his speech, and a lot of hay has
been made over the last century or almost well century
and a half of the difference in length between Lincoln's statement,
Lincoln's addressed, and Everet's addressed, But it's like there's really
no point in comparing them in that sense. No one
expected Lincoln to speak for a very long time. They
(19:57):
expected him to dedicate the thing with some short remarks,
and that Everett was going to give like a two
hour speech. So this didn't surprise anybody at the time.
It just seems like in retrospect, when you compare the
two and the power and the everlasting nous of of
the two speeches that went that it's like, wow, he
did this in only two minutes, wherever it took two hours. Yeah,
(20:20):
I think you said two different things. Yeah, but it's
a it's a myth that it was like. People were like,
I can't believe that was so short. That's all they
were expecting, agreed, Um, And in fact, it was so short.
Here's a nice little tidbit I thought, Uh, the official
photographer for the event, Um, you know, it takes a
minute to get things set up when you're taking pictures
(20:40):
back then you're not just snapping away. And uh, he
took these pictures of Everett and was getting ready to
take pictures of Lincoln and then got everything set and
Lincoln like is walking off with the mic drop. Basically,
that may be a myth as well. I think it's
a great story. It is a fantastic story. There's a
ton of great stories out of here, Like he wrote
(21:01):
the thing on the on the back of an envelope
on the train ride there. Supposedly not true because he
was very well known as a he was a practice
order is a lawyer to start out with. He apparently
poured over his speeches, so the fact that he went
a day early to this um and he he decided
(21:23):
he wanted to use this occasion to help drum up
support for the war. He almost certainly wrote at least
a draft in Washington before he left. Yeah, that's what
they think is that he wrote most of it, if
not all of it, and then continue to work on
it on the train. But I don't think there was
ever an envelope involved, correct, I don't think so. He
(21:45):
had his traveling secretary or is his full time secretary
with him, John Hey, Yeah, John Hay uh ran it
by him, I guess, yeah, And he was like Pravovo,
another great one, and he went thank you. They sipped
their tea in stony silence for the rest of the train. Right,
(22:07):
had a weird relationship. So should we read this thing? Oh? Also,
this is where you know that whole thing was like,
was Abraham Lincoln gay? He shared a bed with a man?
I had never heard that. Oh yeah. There was a
very uh well read biography that came out years back, um,
within the two thousand sometime on Abraham lincol really popular,
(22:29):
and in it the biographer is talking about how, um,
I think at the Gettysburg address he shared a bed
with the man. And one of the reasons why, well,
the reason why was because the town was packed, right,
The town was so packed that even the President of
United States had to share a bed with somebody because
there was just nowhere else for people to be. The
(22:51):
guy who designed the cemetery had to sleep sitting up
in somebody's like front room, in a chair that night
the night before the dedication, because the town was so
packed at the girls. But there was this whole like,
was they Lincoln gay? He was an entire book not
about him being gay. It was mentioned in that people
read the book and then started talking about whether he
(23:11):
was because my book would say it was President Lincoln gay,
and you would open it up and said who cares?
At the end, it would be like, why did they
print a thousand plank pages after that Civil War book? Yeah? Exactly,
it's gotta be four inches thick, and they make great doorstops. Uh.
Should we read the Singing full? Yeah, with a little music,
(23:34):
maybe some something patriotic? Yeah? I think we should split
it in half, though, as we uh do with our
havween readings. Should we What are we going with her?
Yakety Sachs I think we used Oh Tannenbaum, Oh tan
Obama would be good. All right, Well, we'll see. Is
Jerry's choice? Jerry surprised us? Do you want to start
(23:55):
or finish? Uh? I will art because I have a
feeling you're gonna do better than me. Is that better
to finish? Then? Okay, go ahead. Four score I'm just kidding. Sorry.
Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth
(24:17):
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
(24:39):
of that field as a final resting place for those
who here gave their lives that this 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 hollow this ground. The brave men, living and dead,
who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor
(25:01):
power to add or detract. That was wonderful, It was okay,
all right, I'm gonna bring it home. Should I do
it in a high bits? Now, that's why I figured
I should go first. Let's bringing the helium. Uh, here
we go. The world will little note nor long remember
what we say here, but it can never forget what
(25:21):
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
(25:42):
gave the last full measure of devotion. That we here
highly resolved 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. Boom
(26:04):
abe out and he dropped his mike. It really is
at the modern the modern description of this speech is
that it's a mic drop. Two hundred and seventy two,
two seventy three depends on what version you're looking at.
Words under two minutes is all he needed. Under two minutes,
(26:25):
and he was even interrupted with applause five times, and
it still only took two minutes. And when when he
when he said this, chuck. When he gave the speech,
it was totally in contrast with the way politicians are
any order at the time, spoke the two hour spiel.
That ever, gave a lot of raw raw stuff that
(26:47):
was the standard standard stuff, flowery language, lots of lofty
rhetoric while admonishing the Confederacy. Admonishing is that the right word? Yeah? Um,
just a really kind of a rousing type of thing.
But the idea that you that a politician would get
up and give a plain spoken speech was new as
(27:10):
of the moment Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address. The guy,
the author, Gary Wills, the historian, not the lawyer who
set the whole thing up allegedly. Um, not the same guy.
He points out that, Um, uh Everett, that's the first name, Edward.
Edward Everett gave his speech at the last moment in
(27:32):
history when it was customary to give a speech like that.
Because Abraham Lincoln got on stage right after that and
changed it forever in the opposite direction. And they say that, um,
he changed American speech for not just like speaking, that's
his oration, but also writing, and that Mark Twain's modern
(27:52):
novel Huckleberry Finn, the first modern novel um followed in
the footsteps of the Gettysburg Address or the way of
speaking and talking that Lincoln laid down in the Gettysburg Address,
like he just changed everything. Wow, yeah, all right, well
let's take another break because I have to reflect on that.
You just laid down some heavy stuff. And uh, we'll
(28:14):
finish up after this speech. Changer, who was That's what
(28:35):
you said? Changer? Um? And it was amazing. And and
whoever wrote our article? Who was that? Uh? Tiffany Connor.
Tiffany Connor, she's great. Um. She points out that it
was a time when, um, they were starting to send
messages via telegraph, so that also tied end and that
(28:59):
people we're trying to get to the point a little quicker,
I think because of the telegraph. And I started talking
to somebody to snap your fingers, like come on, yeah,
like you're sitting a telegraph and you gentlemen on this
day and they're like all right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I
need to go to the bathroom. That's what I'm trying
to say. So they were just striving for a more
(29:20):
concise language. And I think Lincoln really like put a
uh he dotted the eye, maybe even cross the tea
as well. Yeah, and said like this is a better
way to talk. And it sounds even a little flowery
to us, but like we should have read parts of
Everett speech. That's where we failed. We failed pretty badly. Um, alright,
(29:42):
So what else was different about it? It was, Um,
it was a pretty radical idea at the time too,
because what he kind of did with his speech, well,
not what kind of did. What he very much did
was say, let's take a big picture of view of
this thing. And and they point out he doesn't talk
about slavery or the Confederate army or the Union army. Um.
(30:04):
He talks about things in very broad terms and basically says,
you know what, the Declaration of Independence was the bomb.
That was the deal, the real deal, and the Constitution
is the means by which we serve that document. Because
at the time there were southerns going old slavery is
(30:24):
not even in the Constitution, right, it was very much
If not that the Constitution was the guiding document of
the United States government, then at least no one was
saying that the Declaration of Independence was Lincoln was basically
saying with the speech he was reframing it. He was saying, no,
it's the in the Declaration of Independence laid out the ideals.
(30:47):
The Constitution is just the vehicle you used to get
to those ideals. And let's all remember that in the
Declaration of Independence it talks about all men being created
equal and in today's modern world where it's gonna substitute
men with humans. Yeah, and and even at the time
it was obviously people weren't so far along that Lincoln
(31:09):
was like, you know, and slaves should be completely equal
to us starting today. Like it was even a process
for the North to to bring about equality over time.
But just the notion that we deserve everyone is born
and deserves equality was a radical idea at the time. Yeah,
(31:30):
and so, I mean, it's really worth As I was
researching this, I had to go back and reread the
address a couple of times, and once I did, it
really started to sink in. Yeah, finally, now and almost
my fortieth year on this planet, I can understand the
Gettysburg Address. It should not be teaching this to school children.
It's totally meaningless to them or to break it down
(31:51):
sentence by sentence and really explain it. Sure, okay, you
know if you have like you know, um, the poet Society,
teacher or Captain Mike Captain, who was the guy that
Matthew Perry played ron somebody Chandler b Chandler bing. It
was a different role. This is a teacher, like a
really inspirational teacher and something. Yeah, um, you're thinking almost
(32:17):
that was the Malagro beanfield War. No, that was Alabamba. Man,
we got off track. What was my point that Matthew
Perry was the best friend? Oh that like, this doesn't
mean anything to school children. But one of the reasons
why is not because it's above their heads, because this
(32:38):
is the way we see America now. But the reason
we see America in America government and the idea that
it's by the people, of the people, for the people,
and that people are created equal, and that was the
ideals of the Founding the Founding fathers were laid out
in the Declaration of Independence and then that's the true
guiding document. Um. The reason we see these things is
because of the gettysburgherge us in these two hundred and
(33:01):
seventy two wish words. He changed the way that all
Americans from that point forward saw America. And as a
matter of fact, um. Again, Gary Wills points out that
prior to the Gettysburg Address, people referred to the United
States in the plural form, like the United States are
a great place to visit. Um. Afterwards a collection of states. Yes,
(33:23):
And afterwards it became single and unified and a singular noun,
the United States is a great place to visit. That
came after the Gettysburg Address, except for these states. Right
steer clear of these. Um. I had a great Shakespeare
teacher in college that man. I wish I could remember
his name, because I would shout him out. But he
(33:44):
you know, Shakespeare's tough for most people. Um. He literally
every day in class we would sit down. I think
we went through like three plays a year or a
quarter in one class, and we would just read the thing.
And he would stop about every thirty seconds say here's
what that means. Here's what he's saying, and we will go, oh,
(34:05):
that's what that means. Then we would read the next section.
Someone to read it. He go, here's what that means
he's really saying, And he would really put it in
like terms college kids can understand, like, you know when
your friend does this, and that's what's happening here with
with with Horatio, and um, it was just like it
blew my mind because we all left with complete full
(34:26):
understanding of like three plays at a time and would
scramble to like sign up for his his Shakespeare two
class because he was so awesome, and I just I
don't know, it seems like such an effective way to
teach when you're talking about this these old languages. You
can sit around and read Chaucer all day and unless
someone's explaining, like what what it means? Because these stories
(34:47):
are wonderful, amazing stories in particular too. Yeah, but if
you don't get it, you don't, it's not hitting home.
You gotta like liken it to something that they identify
with or basically completely master old or Middle English. Yeah,
who wants to do that? That's sneat man. I wish
you could remember the guys thinking is it Mr Ames,
Mr Barr? I think it was Mr Carr, Dr byng dr.
(35:11):
That's okay. So these days the Gettysburg address, there are
a few different versions of it. There were at least five,
they believe versions, and I think two of them now
actually written down versions are the Library of Congress. Are
they on display? They're probably on display, right sure? Or
(35:31):
you can just be like, let me see one of
the Gettysburg addresses and they'll run off and get it. Yeah,
you just gotta put a fifty in their front pocket. Uh.
So you can actually look at these and they're mostly
the same except for just some little revisions here and there.
Then he made I guess post um. Yeah, yeah, because
because he knew the document would live on and if
(35:52):
they had dressed this is this confused me for a second.
I had to wrap my head around it. If he
had dressed before then it would have proven unequivocally that
he had written it before he was on the train.
But the fact that myth is still around is because
there's no fact to counterbalance it. So that means that
all the drafts came after. There are copies that he
made that imagine his secretary wrote down himself. I think
(36:15):
he gave them some to him. But yeah, I'm sure
John Hay was responsible for it. But John Hay had
one that is in the Library of Congress, right, Yeah.
But it's funny that you don't think about like any
like four copies of this, So start writing right, you know,
get out the pin and would a kill you to
draw some rabbits doing some weird things in the margins.
So what about the reaction? Um, I think there's been
(36:37):
a lot of disagreement depending on who you talked to.
Some people say it in the moment at the place,
it wasn't super well received, but other people are saying like, no,
that's a myth. Yeah, apparently it's another big myth that
especially he walked off and was like, man, they really
hated that I blew it. Yeah, he he knew that
(36:58):
it did exactly what he wanted it too. Yeah, he
wanted to drop the mic and he did, and supposedly
the crowd was pretty happy with it. And people are like,
why do you drop that corn cob? Why was he
talking into it the whole time? And why did it
amplify his voice? That was the most surprising part. Uh, Well,
who cares if they liked it or not at the time.
(37:18):
We love it now, yeah, go crazy over it. Clearly
we've been like breathlessly talking about how great the Gettysburg
addresses this whole time. We haven't even entertained the other
side that it sucked. You know what else we didn't
do was the very thing we said it would be
a great way to teach people. We should have read
it and after every few sentences broken down what it meant.
(37:40):
That's not our job. All right, We're not gonna do
all the work. Do you want to know? Okay, we'll
let the teachers do it. Yeah. I encourage this should
be in classrooms. Did we say anything really bad in
this one? Yeah? This is a teaching aid. Watch this
turn record over now remember that? Oh yeah? Okay. Uh.
(38:01):
If you want to know more about the Gettysburg address,
ask your teacher and you can also go on to
our great website how Stuff Works dot com and type
in Gettysburg address. No h at the end, we're not
in Scotland. Nope, and uh, since I said Scotland, it's
time for a listener mail. By the way, quickly, I uh,
(38:22):
after the other day talking about the Brules rules on sushi,
I went and watch it again like three times. Yeah,
I still haven't seen it. Did you? Did you watch
bag Boy? That that one? Listening? Now? I still didn't know.
I looked it up. I haven't sitting on a Google search.
I haven't had time to give any attention to it.
I remember what it was specifically about it that really
(38:42):
killed me was is that he says shush said the sushi,
and the intros saying like, we have a chef here
to make some delicious sushi sandwiches. Sushi sandwiches. All right.
This is from I know you remember Kathleen of Cooper Cats,
(39:04):
the PR Agency, former PR. Yes, many years ago, We've
farmed out our PR to this great company New York,
Cooper Cats, and Kathleen worked there, still does, and she
was awesome and super nice. And she wrote this in
about something she's working on this year to her heart,
which I think is pretty important, Hey guys. And she
(39:26):
had some nice things to say early on wowry rhetoric
like Edward just catching up with us. But I won't
bore you with that. Um hey guys. Uh, it wasn't
boring to us, by the way, I just don't want
to you know. Um Hey, guys. I was writing because
of one of our clients nowadays is Memorial Sloan Kettering
Cancer Center. Are there, the oldest and largest private cancer
center in the US, And we're beginning a big public awareness,
(39:48):
slash press, push around misconceptions um and misperceptions and miss
about clinical trials that people have about them. While this
is for a client, it's really important to me. I've
learned a lot of things. One, only four of patients
participate in clinical trials. Wow, it's alarmingly low, even though
(40:11):
they are the root of every current in future advance
and treatment. People have negative impressions of clinical trials, and
that changes as soon as they learn more about them.
Other things I learned through my work with msk UM
things I learned about my work with Memorial Sloan Kettering
I had no idea about before the trials. Uh. They
are not just for last resorts clinical trials. Many of
(40:32):
the best treatments are offered early in treatment through clinical
trial participation. Clinical trials are much more targeted today Uh.
Through genetic screening, tumor testing, and precision medicine. Doctors have
a much better grasp but what works and what will not.
Almost no clinical trials for cancer and volve placebos. Uh.
Though most people are concerned about this like yeah, like
(40:54):
I don't want to I want the drug yeah, um,
yeah exactly. And cost is a huge concern for people
thinking about and rolling and yet almost all out of
pocket costs for treatment are covered. Uh so that is
from Kathleen, and she makes some good points there, she does,
and I never really thought about it. I think we
just got pard. We did ps If you happen to
(41:15):
need a good cry uh memorial Sloan Kettering, and I
do not. By the way, Kathleen, they just wrapped up
a two week partnership with Humans of New York. To
that website. Man, they're great. It's an incredible photo documentary
of the world of pediatric cancer. Uh so many of
the miracles documented were results of clinical trials, is why
(41:36):
I'm so passionate about pushing this information. And Kathleen just
had her second little bab congratulations and uh important stuff.
So look into clinical trials and maybe we should do
a show on them one day. We definitely should be.
I really am surprised that we haven't already have we not?
We did on human experimentation, but we've probably talked more
(41:58):
about the sordid side of it, like boo section, the
gruesome Oh yeah, we did, and we talked about, like
you know, the regulations on people who are human guinea pig. Yeah,
we should. We will do one on Clinical Trump. Yeah.
So that's awesome, Kathleen. It's cool when you can do
work that you can PR with a good feeling. And
we're sorry about URPR episode. I'm not. I stand by that. No,
(42:20):
I think it's great episode, but it probably should have
been called the Legend of Edward Burnet's and less. This
is what PR is like. It was a fun episode,
isn't it. It surely was. If you want to know
more about us, you can hang out with us on
Twitter at s Y s K podcast. Same goes for Instagram,
where you can see pictures of our pets and stuff
(42:40):
like that. You can also hang out with us on
Facebook at Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know,
and you can send us emails to stuff podcast at
how stuff works dot com. Lastly, hang out with us
at our home on the Web, our playhouse for the
Internet Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on
(43:03):
this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works
dot com.
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