Lincoln's Second Inagural Address

I've been feeling a bit snow-bound lately. It hasn't been the worst winter, but it seems like it's been cold and dark for ages.  A few weeks back I was reading the paper and saw a write-up about a display of Lincoln's second inaugural address, in honor of the 150th anniversary at the Library of Congress.  Since my book group, which pretty much contains my best girl friends had read Team of Rivals and visited Lincoln's summer home, it seemed like a good excuse to get together.

After about a million emails back and forth we got our time arranged, and met up to go into DC and see the exhibit.

Left to Right: Wendy, Ginny and Gail.

The speech, at 700 or so words, is one of the shortest in American history: 

1. George Washington's Second Inaugural (130 words)
2. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Fourth (550 words)
3. Abraham Lincoln's Second (700 words)
4. Teddy Roosevelt (1,000 words)
5. Zachary Taylor (1,100 words)

In case you were wondering, William Henry Harrison gave the longest inaugural speech in 1841 at 8,495 words.  He stood in snow storm for an hour and 45 minutes giving his speech, caught pneumonia and died a month later.

Back to the Library of Congress. There was a case with the handwritten speech that was sent to the printer before the address. 

The final page, which contains the most well-known passage of the speech: with malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan -- to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations. 

That page of the speech was on display for many years and is significantly discolored from the rest of the document, due to the exposure of the paper to humidity. 

After viewing the handwritten speech we moved onto to the printed copy.  Lincoln cut and pasted the printed copy into what the docent termed a "script" to cue him in reading the speech publically - a forerunner to the modern-day teleprompter. 

The copy he read from was interesting because the printed speech has 4 paragraphs.  The address he read broke those paragraphs up significantly.  At the end of the second paragraph he wrote: 

Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came. 

The copy that he read broke out the last sentence, as if it were it's own paragraph - And the war came, adding considerable drama to the striking statement. 

The third paragraph which had 15 sentences, one with 68 words, another with with 78 words! and is, to my modern eye, dense.  When giving the address he broke this paragraph into 3-4 different sections, which was probably a good thing, when reading them with the phrases held together with commas and semicolons I had to stop and remember what had been said before! 

It got me thinking about how, 150 years from now, our language will look to readers.  Will their continued exposure to sound bites and mobile device screens cause writing and ideas to be hacked into even shorter statements?