Posted By Gettysburgian Staff on Sep 2, 2025 | 5 comments

During the Class of 2029’s First Year Walk on Aug. 21, Professor of History Michael Birkner ’72 addressed the students as the keynote speaker. Below are his remarks from the event, unedited by The Gettysburgian staff.

President Iuliano, colleagues on this platform, and members of the Class of 2029: it is a privilege to be with you today as we continue to observe one of Gettysburg College’s most meaningful traditions. As I look out at you, I envy the adventure you are about to commence: making new friends, stretching your minds, showing what with good mentoring and hard work, you are capable of accomplishing. I wish you smooth sailing.

Let me begin with a personal story.

More than three score years ago, my seventh-grade social studies teacher required each member of our class to memorize and recite Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Possibly some of you have had that experience at one point or another in your secondary schooling. I can attest that “Four Score and Seven years ago” and the rest of that opening sentence were easy enough to master, but that left another 250 or so words of Lincoln’s wisdom, some of them not familiar to a typical 12-year-old, to master.

But we each did it; and in my case, at least, something stuck. President Lincoln had composed a serious speech about a serious subject for his small role in Gettysburg on November 19, 1863. The nation was in the middle of a great civil war. Lincoln intended to explain, in a few well-chosen words, how the professed principles of a nation “conceived in liberty” were going to be made more substantive, owing to the full measure of devotion of “those who fought here.” Our 16th president was building in this brief but powerful address on the proclamation of emancipation he had issued on January 1, 1863—promising freedom to enslaved people in areas not then in control of the Union army.

If there is any one phrase in a speech filled with memorable lines that stuck with me as a seventh grader reciting the address, it is Lincoln’s expressed concern that those who fought and died here in Gettysburg would make possible a “new birth of freedom.” I had to think about those four words—“new birth of freedom”–and make sense of them. Doing so expanded my limited adolescent horizons.

Most of you in this audience are at least somewhat familiar with Lincoln and his renowned address. It’s my hope that as you begin your Gettysburg College experience, you will consider the context for those eloquent words and apply them to the world in which you live.

We should recall that Lincoln was faced with the greatest challenge to American democracy since George Washington had taken the oath of office in 1789. Were we to be one nation, or two? Were we to be true to the principles of the Declaration of Independence, or were we going to continue to operate on the premise that Americans with white skin were superior to those of a darker skin tone? Lincoln’s words—resolving—yes, resolving—to honor those who “fought here” and gave the “last full measure of devotion” challenged his audience to do better than our ancestors had done on the issue of race.

Let me make clear here that my grappling with the Gettysburg Address as a seventh-grader did not prompt me to become active in the great cause percolating during my growing up years—the fight for equal rights for African Americans. That was the cause of the 1960s. I was too young to be involved in that cause. But I did begin to pay attention to what was at stake. Lincoln had somehow struck a spark with me. By my college years I was deeply interested and engaged in the politics of democracy.

That leads me to my double charge to you this evening. The first charge is to embrace what your decision to attend Gettysburg College offers: the chance to explore subjects you’re curious about; to give your best effort in all you do, whether it is for your course work, on the athletic field, or for the different organizations you will join. Recognize that we learn by doing, learn by trial and error, that failing at one endeavor or another along the way is not some final defeat, but an incentive to work ever harder. You heard some version of those points yesterday in the convocation talks by Professor Tim Funk and President Iuliano.

Take advantage of a faculty that cares about you and stands ready to help you pull yourself up if you’re struggling. If you are excelling, the Gettysburg faculty will help lead you to the next level. That’s what the best of Gettysburg College has always been about for students here.

My second charge is to be alert to the reality that our democracy from within faces today the greatest challenge since Abraham Lincoln’s time. I charge you to understand and engage with the implications of that challenge. We are not in the midst of a shooting war, of course. But we are not living in normal times, either. The guardrails of our democracy are being tested, and in some cases, breached, as never before.

One political party controls all three branches of our federal government. The head of the executive branch of government is now using his power to intimidate leaders in business, academia, and the media to do his bidding. He is evading rulings by jurists at the trial and appellate level when they don’t suit him. He has replaced experts in fields like science and medicine, the arts the civil service with political cronies, many of them manifestly unqualified for their jobs. He has fired the very people—inspectors general in many fields—who are responsible for assuring our government is accountable for its actions.

Further, the president of the United States has engaged in a concerted effort to erase elements of America’s complicated past that he finds unpleasant or inconvenient, seeking to replace honest history with propaganda. What we are witnessing now at the Smithsonian Institution—one of America’s great treasures—is, as one museum professional has put it, “what happens in Russia, China and other authoritarian regimes.”*

I bring these matters up here this evening because standing on hallowed ground, I could not look myself in the mirror if I ignored them. I’m up here not to convert you to a political ideology, or even a point of view. But I am, standing where Abraham Lincoln stood in November 1863, asking you to consider whether Lincoln’s words and the conduct of his entire presidency matter to you. What do you believe our democracy should represent? What are you willing to stand up for? What are you willing to speak out for? What are you willing to oppose, even if it means risking a friendship or some of your personal popularity?

You are blessed with good fortune in being here. I hope you will take seriously Lincoln’s message about doing right for those who died for our democracy. If you do, you will have done your duty as citizens and we will have a better country. In closing, I want to return to my hope that your time at Gettysburg College proves healthy, happy, and intellectually transformative. You could do worse than follow the poet Mary Oliver ‘s prescription for living well: “Pay attention. Be Astonished. Tell About it.”
All the best!

*Robert R. MacDonald letter to the editor of the New York Times, August 19, 2025.