Abraham Lincoln, Coder
I was never good at coding, so when I noticed the underlying beauty of the Gettysburg Address, I appreciated the mastery of Abraham Lincoln not just as an orator, but as a writer in his own right. And what better time to ruminate on this subject, than the anniversary of his speech, a hundred and fifty eight years since he gave it on that muddy, bloody field in Pennsylvania.
My Encounter(s) with Coding
Since high school I had a sense that I was not a good coder – never got good grades, steered mostly clear of programming languages in college. As luck would have it, the first job I landed out of college was that of a coder. There was a tech boom at the time and any college grad who could spell “computer programming” had a job waiting for them. It took me all of two weeks to resign for a variety of reasons. But it was not until business school that it became absolutely clear that I truly sucked at programming.
I had taken a class in Java and one of the assignments had seemed quite straightforward. I wrote down the logic for accomplishing the task, typed it out in a format that the machine would understand, and waited for confetti to fall from the roof of the computer lab. Instead I was greeted by an error message. For some odd reason the code did not run. I poked and prodded it in every which way to debug, but the stubborn mass refused to relent. When the time ran out I submitted the assignment as-is, expecting at least partial credit for the logic displayed and the effort expended. Instead I received a nice round ‘0’. Apparently I had missed a closing bracket in a single line of my code that had messed up one of the nested loops. That was the last time I lied to myself about having any potential to be a coder.
The Gettysburg Address
A little while back I decided to transcribe my favorite speech by President Abraham Lincoln, just to appreciate the wordplay within it. (By the way, it is a fun activity to do with pieces of literature that one admires – copy them down on paper. It is the only art form where one does not need to be a genius to copy the work of legends. Unlike music or painting, where to copy the work of a Mozart or a Van Gogh one needs to actually be skilled in a musical instrument or impressionist brushwork. Copying a Tolstoy or a Dylan just requires a pen and some paper. And the exercise often illuminates hidden structures, or rationale behind their word choice).
And that was exactly what happened here. Upon writing down the Gettysburg Address word-for-word, the structure of the speech started to dawn on me.
It starts off with:
SECTION A:
“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.“
Harking to the ancestors who brought the country into existence, wresting it out of the grip of the British, and hints at the ideals they aspired to.
Then it goes on to:
SECTION B:
“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.“
Refers to the great war they are in the midst of, one that will determine the fate of the nation.
SECTION C:
“We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.“
Now he gets to why they are assembled there that day – not talking about the ambitions of their ancestors, or the objectives of that great war, but to the purpose of their getting together on that day at that place. They are there to dedicate a portion of that field to those who have laid their lives for their country.
So far, President Lincoln has opened up 3 different threads:
SECTION A –> ANCESTORS WHO CREATED THIS COUNTRY
SECTION B –> THE GREAT WAR THEY ARE FIGHTING NOW
SECTION C –> THE REASON THEY ARE ASSEMBLED HERE TODAY
Each successive thread gradually diminishing in ambition, and getting closer to the present moment.
Now see the mastery with which the rest of the speech unfolds, and wraps up every point raised so far with the elegance of an architect. If there is a better masterclass in writing than this speech, I am not sure where it is.
SECTION D:
“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. “
Here it provides the answer to the point raised in SECTION C – the reason for why they are assembled there. And the answer is that no matter what they do to that day to honor the martyrs, it will be an act that will ring hollow. At this point, if you were a person in the audience there 158 years ago, you must have been wondering if there was a point in being assembled there? Was there anything at all they could do? President Lincoln gets to it right after.
SECTION E:
“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 rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain“
Here he shows that what they need to do is not consecrate the field that day, but finish the war they are fighting. Only by doing so they can honor the thousands who have laid down their lives for the nation.
SECTION F:
“— 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.“
And finally he shows that by doing so – by winning the war, they can ensure that the ideals that their ancestors had in mind when they wrought the nation could be sustained. This final line gives a higher purpose to the war itself.
So if you notice, each section in the latter half of the speech closes the points raised in the former in a perfectly nested order:
SECTION D –> CLOSES LOOP ON CONSECRATING THE BATTLEFIELD (SECTION C)
SECTION E –> CLOSES LOOP ON WHAT WINNING THE GREAT WAR CAN DO (SECTION B)
SECTION F –> CLOSES LOOP ON WHAT CAN HONOR THE IDEALS OF FOREFATHERS (SECTION A)
So it takes someone who really sucks at coding to admire a President who not just helped forge the nation, but also would have aced the Java assignment was he alive today and happened to be going to my class in Boston College. It would have been great to have him here today, not just to see him ace that class, but also see him mend his country that is just as divided today as it was 158 years ago.
Text of Gettysburg Address in its entirety: http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm
Photo by Caleb Fisher on Unsplash
