♪ my eyes have seen the coming ♪ where the grapes of wrath are stored ♪ ♪ his truth is marching on ♪ glory glory hallelujah ♪ glory glory hallelujah >> any fool out of yourself, did at anteitim last fall. sing more songs over the graves of the soldiers. >> lincoln, all i ever hear is lincoln. but it isn't true about antietim. i can hardly imagine the president -- >> mcclellan was there, wasn't he? if lincoln didn't do what everybody said he did?

would mclellan have denied it? every paper said lincoln was going to make a stump speech at the cemetery. >> he come with them papers. shouldn't have gone anyway. nobody wanted him. said right here he was just in one of them circulars. >> one of them myself. >> it wasn't much more than a week ago they asked him to speak. >> couldn't have the president there, not call on him to say something. >> chase didn't go, or stanton. and general mead wasn't there either. he said the army needed him. >> the way i figure it out is this, lincoln doesn't have a chance to be re-elected and he knows it. chase wants to be president. he wasn't going to gettysburg to lead a kite tail off the ground. mead didn't go because the president was going to be there. he's still hot under the collar on account of letting them get across the potomac after the battle. >> there's a lot of people who think the president was right. the war might have been ended

back there in july if mead followed lee from gettysburg but the potomac was flooded and mead could have captured him instead of allowing him 11 days to escape and then claimed he had driven the invader from our soil. the president was angry, and properly, i think. if we're fighting to preserve the union, then the whole country is our soil. >> anyway, it was mead who won the battle, wasn't it? what did lincoln have to say, if he had gone up there, he could have whipped lee himself. >> that's right. >> first he wants to be a general and fight all the battles. gettysburg like i said to make a fool out of himself. if it's a wedding, lincoln wants to be the bride. if it's a funeral, lincoln wants to be the corporation. everett is an old waiter, from what i hear. mark my words, he must have made lincoln look as worthless as a rebel shin plaster.

>> hardly fair to expect lincoln to have competed with edward everett. everett was the orator of the day as lincoln, the papers say, was to just give a few dedicatory remarks. everett is a great scholar. a noted boston minister. he's been president of harvard, governor of massachusetts, united states senator. yes, and ambassador to england and secretary of state. lincoln taught himself. >> darn poor teacher, i'd say. >> i never said links con is a great man. maybe he isn't. but he's come a long way by the light of a pine knot with a shingle for a blackboard, charcoal for a pencil and a jack knife for an eraser. he taught himself to read and write and figure.

and now he's president. >> but he won't be long. he's dead as a cock in a pit. thad stevens, republican foreleader in congress when advised of the president's decision to speak at gettysburg cemetery said the dead is going to eulogize the dead. >> that's it. the dead go to bury the dead. >> here's phil now. >> slower than mow lass ses. >> let me have "the new york times." >> that's phil still down at the depot this morning getting the train back to washington. he was there. said it wasn't much of a speech. >> says here exactly what happened.

all it says is, president lincoln made a few remarks upon the occasion. >> everett, phil says, spoke longer than 57 minutes. one of the greatest you ever heerd. he's heard plenty of them in congress. then lincoln spoke before anyone knew. before he could get his head under that shawl. just like that. didn't even get a picture of the president making the speech. >>. told you he'd make a full out of himself. >> we pass over the silly remarks of the president for the credit of the nation we are willing that -- oblivion. i know you don't have to tell

me. that the vail of oblivion shall drop over them and they shall be no more repeated or thought of. >> what paper is that? >> patriot union. right nearby. seems they ought to know what they are talking about. new york tribune here says the ceremony was rendered by some of the sallys of president lincoln. anything more dull and common place it would not be easy to produce. i suppose that will be printed in england now and get them britishs laughing at us. >> even fletcher ain't got much to say now. >> no, but i'm thinking. >> what you thinking of? great speech, four score and seven years.

maybe sounds better to a schoolteacher than 87 years ago. >> no, but here's a paper. the "chicago tribune." they had a reporter there and he wired this. the remarks of president lincoln will live forever in the eyes of men. the president arrived by special train on the baltimore and ohio railroad. >> get down to it. >> an amusing incident occurred when one of the military bands stopped playing in front of the home where lincoln was staying. thinking he was being serenaded, the president came out and acknowledged them but declined to make a speech. he said in my position if you sometimes important that i should not say foolish things.

>> he can't help saying them. >> go on, mr. brown. >> band wept next door to where the secretary responded with a graceful speech. the following morning the procession moved shortly from get tes berg to the cemetery. there were several bands including the artillery band of baltimore. president lincoln rode a horse which seemed much too small for him and his appearance caused considerable amusement. when the procession reached the cemetery, there was another delay. after music by. the band, senator delivered a notable address, which we are pleased to quote here with. standing beneath thisser is reen sky, overlooking these broad fields now with the labors of the waiting year, the mighty

allegheny towering before us, the graves of our brethren, to break the eloquent silence of god and nature. beautiful speech, men, but it it takes up seven columns. although he spoke for nearly two hours, senator everette with his grace. ful form, his clear voice held his audience remarkably. >> it says in this paper president lincoln said in his speech the world with lil note nor long remember -- well, he was right. >> let's hear the rest of it, mr. brown. >> the selection by the military

band. at its conclusion the honorable rose and said, ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states. >> 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. now, we are engaged in a great civil war. testing whether this nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.

we are met on a great battlefield of that war. we've come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here who gave their lives that the nation might live. it is all together 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

power to add or detract. the world will 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 for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. let me hear high 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. ♪ glory glory hallelujah ♪ glory glory hallelujah ♪ glory glory hallelujah ♪ his truth is marching on >> american history tv will be at the soldiers' national cemetery at gettysburg national military park in pennsylvania this coming tuesday to cover the commemorative ceremony marking the 150th anniversary of abraham lincoln's gettysburg address.

speakers include james mcpherson and sally jewel, interior secretary. you can watch the ceremony on thanksgiving day, november 28th at 4:00 and 10:00 p.m. eastern time. here on american history tv on c-span 3. each week, american history tv sits in on a lecture with one of the nation's college professors. you can watch the classes here every saturday at 8:00 p.m. and midnight eastern and sundays at 1:00 p.m. arizona state university professor donald critchlow discusses the republican revival in the 1970s. after richard nixon's resignation and gerald ford's loss to jimmy carter in the 1976 presidential election, the gop brand was weakened to the point that some observers wondered if the party would survive. but by the end of the decade, spurred on by phyllis slafly

revived republican fortunes and helped elect ronald reagan. this class is an hour and 10 minutes. >> today we're going to continue our saga through conservatism and the republican party and specifically what we're going to look at today is the revival of the republican party after the debacle of the nixon administration and watergate. you recall from previous