In commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Museum and Foundation challenged people from all walks of life to write 272 words on Lincoln, the Address, or another cause that stirred their passions. If Mr. Lincoln had been able to take part, his submission might have looked something like this.

As imagined by Bob Willard, Oxnard, California

Abraham Lincoln wrote out a copy of the Gettysburg Address at the request of Edward Everett, the

principal speaker at the November 19, 1863 dedication of the cemetery in Gettysburg. This version is now

at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Il. It contains 272 words.

Bob Willard, who imagined Mr. Lincoln’s 272 words after noticing the coincidental 272 words of the Founders, is a Lincoln enthusiast of more than half a century. He is active with a number of Lincoln organizations: Abraham Lincoln Association (board member and former vice president), Abraham Lincoln Institute (board member and former president), Lincoln Forum (life member and advisor), and Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia (life member and former treasurer). In 2005, he traveled 1,000 miles, including nearly 200 miles on foot, from Lincoln’s birthplace to his tomb, visiting major Lincoln sites in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois.

Abraham Lincoln’s Imagined

272 Words

Two-seventy-two, eh? That’s the number of words

that are in the copy of my Gettysburg speech I wrote

out for Edward Everett. We both spoke at the

dedication of the cemetery there – he, for two

hours; I, two minutes.

I never made it a practice to count the words I write.

I just try to write words that count.

“I have never had a feeling politically that did not

spring from the sentiments embodied in the

Declaration of Independence.” I said that in

Independence Hall on Washington’s birthday in 1861

just before I was to raise a flag there. I took off my

coat before raising that flag, but someone, perhaps

noticing the photographer nearby, urged me to put

it back on.

Before listing the “abuses and usurpations” by the

British monarch, the Declaration of Independence

puts forth two great revolutionary ideas – that all

people are equal with natural rights, and that

government derives its power from the consent of

the governed. The Civil War was fought to preserve

both ideas. If we had failed, not only would millions

of bondsmen and their children continue to be

subjugated by other men, but the idea of self-

government might have been extinguished. What I

called “the last best hope of earth” might no longer

inspire all nations.

Four score and seven years before I spoke at

Gettysburg, the Founders had written words that

count. From their opening “When in the course of

human events” to their concluding “new guards for

their future security,” their words inspired my own

words: “new birth of freedom” and “government

of…, by… and for the people.”

Their 272 words.

The Founders’

272 Words

When in the Course of human events it becomes

necessary for one people to dissolve the political

bands which have connected them with another and

to assume among the powers of the earth, the

separate and equal station to which the Laws of

Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent

respect to the opinions of mankind requires that

they should declare the causes which impel them to

the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men

are created equal, that they are endowed by their

Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among

these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

— That to secure these rights, Governments are

instituted among Men, deriving their just powers

from the consent of the governed, — That whenever

any Form of Government becomes destructive of

these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to

abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying

its foundation on such principles and organizing its

powers in such form, as to them shall seem most

likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence,

indeed, will dictate that Governments long-

established should not be changed for light and

transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath

shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer,

while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by

abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,

pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design

to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their

right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government,

and to provide new Guards for their future security.

The heart of the Declaration of Independence, not including the list of “abuses and usurpations” of King George

III, contains the guiding principles – equality and self-government – under which the United States was

established. It contains the same number of words as the Gettysburg Address.