ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTORY PUZZLE: WHY DID LINCOLN PLAY SECOND FIDDLE AT GETTYSBURG? There was a time in the not so distant past when schoolchildren all across the United States were required to memorize the 250 or so carefully chosen words that Abraham Lincoln spoke on November 19, 1863, to commemorate the Union soldiers who died in the Battle of Gettysburg. Although Americans today rarely commit the Gettysburg Address to memory, most can still recognize its iconic phrases and passages, from the familiar strains of the opening sentence-“Four score 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”—to the instantly recognizable closing line-“that this nat ion, under God, shall have a ne w birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
