Very few Americans since have bothered to read it. The main event on November 19, 1863, was not Lincoln's two-minute closing address but Edward Everett's two-hour oration. In one sense, though, Lincoln was correct about the world not remembering what was said that day. Article 2 of the French Constitution, for instance, states that "The principle of the Republic shall be: government of the people, by the people and for the people." American presidents, and none more than President Obama, pay homage to Lincoln's formulations by borrowing shamelessly from him, sometimes with attribution, sometimes not. Phrases from the Gettysburg Address crop up all over. By contrast, Lincoln's speech arrived at its fame without editorial assistance.
Those ancient Greek speeches may or (more likely) may not have actually been delivered in the literary form in which they have become immortal. It is right up there with the Apology of Socrates and the Funeral Oration of Pericles, with the added benefit that Lincoln's was actually written and delivered by him, whereas the speeches by Socrates and Pericles come to us secondhand, so to speak, from Plato and Thucydides. In fact, the Gettysburg Address must rank high among the greatest speeches anywhere.
Everyone knows the irony of that line where Lincoln says "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here" - ironic because his brief dedicatory remarks have become the most famous American speech. If you've received a good education, you might even be able to recite it from memory. The most obvious problem in approaching Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is that we know it so well.
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