Gettysburg is a place of reinvention, a circumstance brought about by the continual need to find deeper meanings for the sacrifices made there and changes to the narrative of storytelling over the decades. (See Sept. 7, 2011 post Time and Memory at Gettysburg)

Walk or drive the battlefield today and one discovers a layering of interpretations since the Army of the Potomac veterans erected granite and bronze monuments to mark the site of their regimental locations twenty, thirty and forty years after the battle.

These 19th century monuments incorporate sentiments that the veterans wanted remembered — a bronze replica of a bull terrier mascot named Sallie with the 11th Pennsylvania Infantry, the Irish Wolfhound in eternal wait for its fallen master at the Irish Brigade monument, the Army Corps symbols that signified a reorganized army after the Fredericksburg debacle and the list of battles some lost to obscurity that the unit fought in.

It was a Union-commemorated battlefield at first. The 1910 Pennsylvania Memorial with its larger-than-life-size statues of Lincoln, Curtin, Meade, Hancock and several others dominates the battlefield skyline in that regard.

During the Civil War centennial, the southern states provided more balance with the dedication of the Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee monuments along Seminary Ridge.

The sculptor of the Louisiana Monument, Donald De Lue, had a different vantage point than the GAR vets remembering youthful valor. He used images of a dove and laurel tree beside a fallen soldier to symbolize a nation reunited and honoring the dead of both armies.

“The purpose of this memorial is to pay tribute to and memorialize these brave men in a manner which is worthy of their sacrifice, respectfully and easily understood by onlookers of today, as well as the generations of the future,” wrote De Lue in a 1968 letter to the park superintendent.

The equestrian monuments of the Army commanders Lee, Meade, Hancock and Sedgwick astride horse atop a pedestal direct the viewer to ponder the greatness of the man with an upward gaze.

When sculptor Gary Casteel created an equestrian statue of General James Longstreet at Gettysburg in 1998, he deliberately set rider and horse on the ground.

Casteel wanted to move away from hero worship and depict a human being wrestling with the orders he had questioned to lead the ill-fated Pickett’s Charge.

“Consider the equestrians of Gettysburg,” he wrote. “The viewer stands in the shadows of a towering pedestal topped with a monumental scale horse and rider. It is as though we are not to get close to the honored individual. One can only look up and search for the soul of the venerated.”

The course of the three-day battle with its many engagements and acts of heroism presents a challenge to anyone writing a single account of it and an opportunity for others to train their sights on a single encounter.

Bruce Catton and Glenn Tucker — both veteran Washington journalists — wrote one-volume books of Gettysburg during the 1950s and 1960s. Their works cover the engagements yet still maintain a narrative flow worthy of the climactic event.

Both authors give Colonel Joshua Chamberlain of the 20th Maine his due for leading a counterattack at Little Round Top against advancing Confederates on the second day, thereby preventing the Union left flank from being turned. In “Glory Road”, Catton noted that the 20th Maine’s heroics was just one of several actions by lone regiments that saved the day for the Union army.

In 1975, author Michael Shaara published the historical novel “Killer Angels” about Chamberlain and the 20th Maine. The novel led to a new focus on the unique engagements that make up this complex battle.

A wave of books followed giving in-depth treatment to specific Gettysburg engagements at places like the Railroad Cut and Culp’s Hill and to legendary units like the Irish Brigade.

The National Park Service acknowledged the Chamberlain phenomenon providing signs and visual displays to tell the story at the 20th Maine monument erected in 1886 by surviving veterans.

In the years since, the NPS has put up many engagement displays depicting the battlefield paintings of a post-centennial generation of artists.

A long-term project by the NPS to restore the battlefield to its 1863 appearance focuses on clearing artillery lines of sight, returning second-growth forests back to farm fields and bringing orchards to life again.

Clear-cutting has made it possible to better understand Farnsworth’s Cavalry Charge, a counterattack by Union cavalry against Texas soldiers on the third day following Pickett’s Charge.

When this area near Big Round Top was heavily forested, it was hard to picture mounted troopers charging among the trees to meet the enemy.

The battle of Gettysburg has been described as human destiny shaped by geology.

“The Battle of Gettysburg was essentially an effort by the Confederates to drive the Union army from the outcrop of the Gettysburg sill (a distinctive rock formation) south of the town of Gettysburg,” wrote Andrew Brown in Geology and the Gettysburg Campaign, a state publication. “The outcrop is shaped like a fishhook extending northwards about 3 miles from Round Top through Little Round Top to Cemetery Hill, then east and south to the barb of the fishhook, Culps Hill.”

Since Gettysburg’s 125th anniversary in 1988, there has been more commemoration of the entire Gettysburg campaign. This involved several weeks of campaigning and skirmishes in three states. Lee’s army operated on a 100-mile front in Pennsylvania. This has been driven in part by community pride and heritage tourism.

The borough of Gettysburg is a key part of this effort being the scene of considerable fighting on the first day and a vast hospital in the days after the battle. A highlight is the recent NPS acquisition of the David Wills House where Lincoln stayed during the Gettysburg Address.

South Central Pennsylvania is a fast-growing region and preservation losses have occurred, most notably the destruction nearly twenty years ago of the remaining sections of Fort Washington in Lemoyne for a housing unit.

Fort Washington was one of the few Civil War fortifications built north of the Mason-Dixon line, a hurried-up defense on a bluff of land on the west side of the Susquehanna River across from Harrisburg. The earthworks were dug by private citizens and black laborers provided by the Pennsylvania Railroad. Confederate and Union troops skirmished at Oyster’s Point, one mile west of the fort.

Offsetting the fort’s loss is the effort by the Friends of the Monterey Pass Battlefield to mark and interpret that engagement, a desperate midnight clash in a rainy downpour involving the cavalry of both armies amidst a long wagon train carrying wounded Confederate soldiers in retreat following the battle. This running battle among the ravines and passes of South Mountain was as intense as any during the Civil War. – Robert Swift

Some attribute it to the undercutting of promising favorite sons by their own jealous colleagues and others to the dominant concern of governors and senators being to protect the state’s vital manufacturing interests.

Gov. Samuel Pennypacker wrote that his prospects for a presidential run at the turn of the 20th century fizzled when he enacted a newspaper libel or “muzzle law” and the newspapers of the state turned against him. 

Pennypacker served one term as governor from 1903 to 1907. He made it clear in his inaugural address that he wanted a state law providing monetary damages for physical and mental suffering caused by publishing stories without “reasonable care.”

The new governor also called for publishing the names and addresses of newspaper owners with each issue.

He had such a law on his desk for signing within a few short months of taking office. The law was repealed four years later.

A Common Pleas Court judge before running for governor, Pennypacker wanted to rein in what he considered a sensationalist press through his experiences on the bench. He discussed trying cases of negligence brought on by bad driving or company conduct and questioned why the publishing of libelous and inaccurate information didn’t fall in the same category.

“It was not the suggestion of Quay, Penrose or any other politician, but was the outcome of my experience upon the bench, where I had known many an unfortunate to be convicted, and many a criminal to be acquitted, because of impressions made on the minds of jurors by the reckless and inaccurate publications of the facts,” wrote Pennypacker in “The Autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.”

The reference to Pennsylvanian Republican political bosses Matthew Stanley Quay and Boies Penrose reflected a chink in Pennypacker’s image as a political reformer.
Pennypacker had the support of Quay’s machine in his gubernatorial bid and that counted against him despite such achievements in office as creating the Pennsylvania State Police and paving the way for primaries to pick party nominees.

Pennypacker thought he was helping journalism become reputable through the libel law and cited support from one of the most prominent journalists of the day – George Alfred “Gath” Townsend of Civil War correspondent fame.

But Pennsylvania editors didn’t see it that way. Pennypacker noted that suggestions made in newspapers that he would be the next GOP presidential candidate soon faded away. The governor was a frequent target of criticism by the Philadelphia North American under the editorship of progressive-minded Edwin A. “Van” Valkenburg. (see Nov. 20, 2012 post)

The Capitol press club formed a social group called the “Muzzle Club.” Pennypacker spoke before the group and that eased the tensions somewhat, according to E.J. Stackpole in “Behind the Scenes with a Newspaper Man.” (see Jan. 4, 2013 post)

The eruption of the Capitol Graft Scandal in 1906 set off another row. Pennypacker’s critics in the press asked why the governor didn’t know about the illegal overcharging for Capitol furnishings. Pennypacker published a lengthy defense of his conduct and he was not charged with any wrongdoing.

“Until the end of his life I think Governor Pennypacker was honestly persuaded that the Capitol graft cases had been greatly exaggerated in public thought,” wrote Stackpole.

In the autobiography published after his death, Pennypacker indicated that the newspapers attacks against him had “injurious” effect.

He recounted that when President Theodore Roosevelt was approached about nominating Pennypacker to the U.S. Supreme Court, TR responded “What would the newspapers say?” — Robert Swift

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In the prosperous 1920s, the Harding scandals did not upend Republicans control of the presidency and the Congress. When the economy boomed in 1998-99, Bill Clinton rode out the Lewinsky scandal. His Vice-President, Al Gore, far from an attractive candidate, won the popular vote in 2000 and only lost the presidency by a handful of votes in Florida. Could Clinton have won a third term, had the Constitution allowed it? I think there was a good chance. The conclusion being: when times are bad, scandals will erode a president and his party’s credibility. When times are good, the party in power may ride them out.

The Congressional Republicans cannot ignore these scandals and should investigate them with careful deliberation. Then, let the facts tell the story. No matter how damaging the story may be to President Obama and the Democrats, the Republicans must have a message. It should be about the restoration of the American economy; and they should have candidates who can make that message compelling. If there is a glimmer of hope for the Republicans, it may be with the Republican governors up for re-election. Against considerable opposition within their states, Kasich of Ohio, Walker of Wisconsin, Martinez of New Mexico, Christie of New Jersey, Scott of Florida and Snyder of Michigan have tackled tax reform, the power of government unions, pension funding and growing deficits (For reasons discussed elsewhere on this blog, Gov. Corbett is the weakest of the group). If these governors are re-elected, it may augur well for Republican chances in 2016. Economic issues touch people’s lives directly. That is a fact the Republicans must grasp, even as scandals grab headlines.

A brief look at how the state came to privatize the sale and distribution of wine and spirits (the uniquely Pennsylvania name for hard liquor) harkens back to the Progressive Era, the reform movement whose social goal was to make social life more moral.

Progressives, mostly upper middle class and wealthy reformers, had their greatest political influence at the beginning of the 20th century, but the movement largely ended by the beginning of World War I. One component of the movement continued, largely through the work of the Anti-Saloon League and other temperance groups — eventually leading to the passage of the 18th amendment, banning the manufacturing, sale and transportation of “intoxicating liquors.”

No one more epitomized the attitude of the movement towards the evils of drinking than the father of Pennsylvania’s crusade, Gifford Pinchot, four times a gubernatorial candidate and twice elected. Some of his opponents accused him of hypocrisy, but he had become a lifelong committed “dry” during his time as young man studying in Europe. And he remained a “dry.”

Born into a wealthy family, he lived in a French chateau style home, called Grey Towers, in Milford. A Yale graduate, he joined the administration of Theodore Roosevelt serving as chief forester, or put another way, the nation’s head conservationist. Before his governorship, his role in state government included a stint as head of the state’s forests, where he undertook a huge expansion of the state-owned forestland.

In today’s parlance Pinchot would be described as a committed liberal. He supported stronger labor laws, a diversified state work force, and the state maintenance of rural roads. He was a big fan of FDR and the New Deal.

Pinchot, like many progressives, believed alcohol was the root cause of many evils, and argued it was government’s role to protect the unfortunate. Joining him in his effort was his wife, Cornelia, a devoted suffragette who campaigned for the 18th amendment, working for its state ratification. During the 1930’s, she became a national figure — outspoken, combative, and assertive.

The end of Prohibition in 1933 coincided with his second term as governor (1931-1935). Even before its demise, Pinchot had engaged in a feud with the legislature over its enforcement. No doubt enforcement was difficult, in part because many of the state’s politicians were simple not interested in closing down the speakeasies and other alcohol establishments. But that did not stop him and his state police commissioner, Lynn Adams, from using the state police to confiscate prodigious quantities of booze.

Nothing he could do could stop the repeal of the 18th amendment. He was probably apoplectic when, by a 3-to-1 margin, Pennsylvania voters supported repeal.  He did, however, have the last laugh when almost immediately the state took over the entire liquor operation, creating a monopoly that still stands today. Pennsylvania remains as only two of 11 states to do so after Prohibition ended. How much longer is a question currently before the state legislature?

For an interesting take on Pinchot and his wife Cornelia, read Paul Beers’ Pennsylvania Politics Today and Yesterday.

An unlikely individual to have a poem named after him by a major American poet.

But “Ritner” by John Greenleaf Whittier pays homage to a Pennsylvania politician who spoke out against slavery at a time when it was unpopular to do so even in the North.

“THANK God for the token! One lip is still free.
One spirit untrammelled, unbending one knee!”

Ritner became an inspiration for Whittier with an anti-slavery message delivered as part of his annual legislative address in 1836.

“Opposition to slavery at home, which by the blessing of Providence, has been rendered effectually; opposition to the admission into the Union of new slave-holding States, and opposition to slavery in the District of Columbia, the very hearth and domestic abode of the national honor, have ever been and are the cherished doctrines of our State, “ said Ritner.

Ritner took care to cite legal precedents in Pennsylvania in opposition to slavery starting with a 1780 state law to gradually abolish slavery, an 1807 resolution against the slave trade, an 1819 resolution opposing the admission of Missouri to the union as a slave state and an 1819 resolution to abolish slavery in the nation’s capital.

He warned that the union is a voluntary compact and that for one portion to impose terms and dictate conditions on the other changes the relationship.

A Quaker from New England, Whittier was also self-educated and best known for his poems evoking a pastoral vision of an early America.

He was a dedicated abolitionist as a young man active in anti-slavery societies, editing and contributing pieces to abolitionist journals and winning election to the Massachusetts legislature the same year Ritner was elected governor.

Whittier was subject to bouts of ill health that forced him to withdraw periodically from the political fray. It put an early end to his legislative career, but in 1838 Whittier arrived in Philadelphia as editor the anti-slavery National Inquirer soon to be renamed the Pennsylvania Freeman.

Abolitionists were often viewed during this period in both the North and South as a disruptive force threatening to sunder the bonds of a union that had economic benefits for both sections.

Whittier experienced the full blast of this sentiment when a mob burned down Pennsylvania Hall in the spring of 1838, a newly dedicated meeting place for abolitionist causes in Philadelphia that contained the offices of the Pennsylvania Freeman.

Whittier lost his books and papers in the blaze. Ritner was defeated for governor later that year in a close election, but there were many factors involved beyond anti-slavery issues.

In “Ritner”, Whittier refers to the sweep of the governor’s rhetoric over his home state.

“O’er the crags, Alleghany, a blast has been blown!
Down thy tide, Susquehanna, the murmur has gone!”

It was a literary foreshadowing of a line in Martin Luther King Jr.’s Address to the March on Washington fifty years ago urging passage of a civil rights bill.

“Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.” – Robert Swift

These nearly 6,000 British and Hessian soldiers were the unfortunate progeny of British General “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne’s defeat at the Battle of Saratoga in October 1777.

An unusual agreement between Burgoyne and American General Horatio Gates led to the defeated army being treated under terms of a convention rather than a capitulation.

Gates agreed to the convention skillfully negotiated by Burgoyne because he was concerned that another British army would march up the Hudson from New York City.

The Continental Congress sitting in York, Pa. eventually changed the terms of the convention. This action represents an early test of the primacy of civilian rule over the military.

The intervention by Congress prevented the Convention army from sailing home to Europe and prolonged the misery of its soldiers. Many of them spent the next five years in prison camps in the American backcountry.

They spent time in prisons at Lancaster, York and at Charlottesville, Va. Officers were accorded better treatment and many paid for lodging in taverns or private homes.

This was an army not just of soldiers – but wives, children and camp followers too.

Under the convention terms, Burgoyne’s army stacked its arms near Saratoga and marched under guard to Boston to spend the winter and await embarkation on British ships. They were considered parolees pledged not to fight again in the war.

The Boston captivity was a tense one with General George Washington worried about an attempted British rescue of the army or an unequal prisoner exchange forced under the convention terms.

Congress shared these doubts and investigated whether all the terms of the convention had been adhered to. In January 1778, Congress voted to suspend the Convention army’s embarkation unless the British Court ratified the convention. This was done knowing full well that London wouldn’t consent to anything that would smack of recognition of the rebels.

By the fall of 1778, American officials decided to move the Convention army away from the coast. They marched the soldiers westward though the Mid-Atlantic provinces and through heavily German-speaking Lancaster and York Counties and south across the Potomac River to Charlottesville.

The Hessian commander, Baron Friedrich Adolphus von Riedesel, described Pennsylvania as the “corn magazine for the middle provinces of America.”

He wrote admiringly of Pennsylvania’s good linens and woolen factories, cattle and leather manufacturing.

He attributed the inhabitants’ liking for agriculture and mechanical trades to the presence of different religious groups such as the Dunkers and Anabaptists.

Riedesel’s wife, Baroness Frederika Charlotte Louise, and young daughters accompanied the army and shared in many of the discomforts. The Baronesses’ travails add a romantic gloss to an otherwise difficult experience.

At Charlottesville, Thomas Jefferson and others befriended her. The Riedesels were able to return to Germany before many of the soldiers did.

By late 1780, Charlottesville was no longer regarded as a safe place to keep prisoners. The Convention army was marched north to Pennsylvania and initially kept in the Lancaster Barracks.

Lancaster had housed British and Hessian prisoners since the start of the Revolution and the residents were weary of accommodating more.

The soldiers finished out their captivity at Reading and at Camp Security, near York, which historic preservationists are working to save at www.campsecurity.com

When the remnants of the Convention Army finally left for Europe in 1782, their numbers had been greatly diminished by death through sickness and privation, desertions and Hessian soldiers remaining in Pennsylvania where the culture and prosperous farms struck a note of familiarity. – Robert Swift

Pennsylvania’s capital witnessed the “Buckshot War” in 1838 when rival factions descended on the statehouse to contest disputed results in legislative elections that would decide whether Democrat David R. Porter or Anti-Mason incumbent Joseph Ritner would be certified the next governor. The militia was called out to keep order and Porter was confirmed the winner of the close gubernatorial election. (see May 17, 2011 post)

The Whig Party held a presidential nominating convention in December 1839 in Harrisburg to pick War of 1812 hero Gen. William Henry Harrison and John Tyler as the party’s presidential and vice presidential nominees.

Democrats rallied in Harrisburg on July 4, 1838 in an effort to launch a presidency candidacy for another War of 1812 hero, Naval Commodore Charles Stewart.

Stewart, commander of the Constitution, was seen as an alternative to unpopular Democratic president Martin Van Buren. Stewart honored the rally with his presence and donated a cannon to the cause. But the Stewart boomlet didn’t go far and Van Buren again became his party’s nominee.

Van Buren was unpopular because of the financial Panic of 1837 and the economic recession that followed. This meant an early start to political maneuvering for 1840, an election that led to a new level of campaign hoopla.

Technology accounted for Harrisburg’s availability as a political meeting place. A steam locomotive pulled the first passenger train into Harrisburg in September 1839, three months before the Whigs met at the newly rebuilt Zion Lutheran Church located near the train station.

Zion Lutheran Church stands today proud of its history. The church’s sanctuary was the largest meeting hall in the city at the time. The stained glass windows have been replaced over the years and the church building has expanded, but a visitor today can sense how a Whig party on the rise would have filled this spacious sanctuary – which still evokes the mid 19th century – with great excitement. The acoustics are excellent too.

The contenders for the Whig nomination were the semi-retired Harrison, congressional powerhouse Henry Clay and yet another War of 1812 hero Gen. Winfield Scott.

Harrison was nominated by a rump Anti-Mason convention (so named for their opposition to secret fraternal societies) meeting in Philadelphia months before, but “Prince Hal” Clay was the favorite going into the Whig convention.

However, a cabal of Whig powerbrokers was afoot. New York political boss Thurlow Weed joined with Thaddeus Stevens, a rising Pennsylvania politician, to engineer the votes to deliver the nomination to Harrison.

Their device was the unit rule, a resolution adopted at the convention that ultimately led to a state delegation casting its entire vote for the candidate who had the majority support.

The rule reads: “That the vote of a majority of each delegation shall be reported as the vote of that State”

This hurt Clay whose support was scattered among the state delegations.

At the convention’s close, a friend of Harrison’s from Ohio assured the delegates they had made a wise choice.

“When everything else fails, they proclaim at the top of their voices that he is an imbecile old man,” said delegate Jacob Burnet as reported in the Proceedings of the Democratic Whig National Convention. “Sir, I had the pleasure of taking him by the hand the morning I left home; scarcely a week passes in which I do not see and converse with him, and let me assure you and this assembly, that his mind is as vigorous, as active, and as discriminating as it was in the meridian of his days; that he enjoys fine health, and all the bodily vigor and activity which belong to a man of sixty-five or sixty-six.”

That bodily vigor failed Harrison at a critical moment. He took the oath of office as president at age 68 on a windy March 4, 1841 and gave a lengthy inaugural address.

Harrison caught pneumonia and became the first president to die in office one month later on April 4. — Robert Swift

Politicians of all stripes and sizes have striven to get right with Lincoln as a famous 1951 essay by historian David Donald put it.

“Getting Right with Lincoln”, the title of Donald’s essay, shows how American politicians seek to identify with Lincoln, align with his legacy and invoke his name to advance the causes and passions of the moment.

Donald cites the remark of an Illinois congressman named Everett McKinley Dirksen that the first task of a politician is to get right with Lincoln.

Steven Spielberg’s film “Lincoln” puts a spotlight on Lincoln’s political skills with the horse-trading to win adoption of the constitutional amendment banning slavery.

Donald got it down decades earlier writing in another essay that Lincoln was an “astute and dextrous operator of the political machine.”

He used those skills to outmaneuver rivals for the 1864 presidential nomination and then get out the “solider vote” in key states like Pennsylvania to win reelection.

President Obama knows how to get right with Lincoln.

He is scheduled to deliver the State of the Union message to a joint session of Congress on February 12, Lincoln’s birthday.

Obama formally launched his first campaign for the presidency on Feb. 10, 2007 at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois where Lincoln gave his “House Divided” speech against slavery.

Obama follows a well-tread path.

After the assassination, Republicans portrayed themselves as the party of Lincoln. They evoked the bloody shirt of the Civil War soldier with a triptych of three martyred Republican presidents — Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley.

Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft fought to claim Lincoln’s mantle during the 1912 presidential campaign.

Five decades ago, the annual meeting of the Lincoln Fellowship of Pennsylvania on the Nov. 19 anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address provided a platform for politicians to get right with Lincoln.

Lincoln would have joined in the anti-communist crusade, said Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Morgan Davis addressing the Fellowship in 1960.

“So, I say, the spirit of Lincoln is with us when we join with other free peoples to bar the spread of godless, aggressive communism,” said Davis. “And the thousands who, week after week, flee their homelands to escape Communist oppressors would fervently join in Mr. Lincoln’s prayer of 1863 for “new birth of freedom.”

In 1961, Dirksen, now the Senate Republican leader, spoke at Gettysburg.

“THE MAN FROM ILLINOIS spoke of a nation dedicated to equality. Is it a hollow word with which to beguile multitudes or does it have meaning? If it means anything, it must mean equality before the law, equality of opportunity, and equality of rights or it departs from the concept to which the new nation was dedicated,” said Dirksen.

Three years later, Dirksen answered his own question helping Lyndon Johnson pass the 1964 Civil Rights Law. – Robert Swift.

Pennsylvania Senators Bob Casey and Pat Toomey and Congressman Scott Perry extended the invitation for Obama to undertake what would be a daunting task for any president.

He may feel he has to come up with a few words that will be recited by schoolchildren generations from now.

Obama could leave himself open for literary comparisons with the immortal 271-word address delivered by President Abraham Lincoln when he dedicated the Soldiers’ National Cemetery on Nov. 19, 1863.

Lincoln’s address includes such touchstone phrases as “a new birth of freedom”, “the last full measure of devotion” and “of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Yet, Obama as the second president from Illinois and one presumably looking to build a second term legacy, may find the time and place just right to deliver “a few appropriate remarks” as Lincoln did.

He would thus acknowledge a missed opportunity of historic proportions if he did.

President John F. Kennedy received a similar invitation from the Pennsylvania commission established to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address in 1963.

Kennedy sent his regrets deciding to make political fence-mending trips during that week to Florida and Texas instead.

In “The Trip John F. Kennedy Should Have Made”, the late Harrisburg Patriot-News columnist and author Paul Beers suggested that Kennedy wouldn’t have made the fateful trip to Dallas on Nov. 22 where he was assassinated had he gone to Gettysburg instead.

“Little did anyone realize how the course of our history might have been changed had President Kennedy’s decision been to come to Pennsylvania rather than to go to Texas during that week of November, 1963,” according to the commission’s report to the General Assembly published in December 1964.

Kennedy sent a Western Union telegram on Nov. 16 that was read aloud at the ceremony.

“Lincoln and others did indeed give us “a new birth of freedom,” but the goals of liberty and freedom, the obligations of keeping ours a government of and by the people are never-ending,” he said.

Former President Dwight Eisenhower gave the address to rededicate the ceremony in Kennedy’s place and spoke of the need to defend freedom.

“On this day of commemoration, Lincoln still asks of each of us, as clearly as he did of those who heard his words a century ago, to give that increased devotion to the cause for which the soldiers in all our wars have given the last full measure of devotion,” Eisenhower said.

In their way, Kennedy and Eisenhower have shown their successors how to meet Lincoln on his own terms.

A modern president can renew Lincoln’s challenge for new generations and pay homage to his enduring phrases when he or she makes their own appropriate remarks.

With his “We the People” litany and references to the Declaration of Independence in his second inaugural address, Obama may have started down that road to Gettysburg. — Robert Swift

The variables are many: 1) the health of the overall economy, 2) the success or failure of his agenda, 3) the fiscal situation of the state, 4) the infamous 6-year itch plaguing the party that holds the presidency, 5) the strengths and weaknesses of potential rivals—just to mention five. My writing partner, Mike Young, and I wrote a column recently analyzing a few of the important aspects in play. In this blog, I extend our argument by looking at what recent history tells us about the reelection of Pennsylvania governors.

The first governor to be eligible for reelection to a second term, Milton Shapp, had to get not one but two income taxes through the legislature after the first one was declared unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court. Adding to the tax unpopularity, Shapp was not arguably the most liberal governor in modern state history, which fueled talk of a primary challenge from two city mayors, the popular mayor of Pittsburgh Pete Flaherty and Philadelphia mayor Frank Rizzo. Neither of them filed against Shapp. In the end, he easily won reelection over Drew Lewis by 300,000 votes, aided by the resignation of President Nixon, who faced certain impeachment in the wake of the infamous Watergate cover-up. All in all, a bad year for Republicans–the 6 year itch held true.

One of his successors, Bob Casey, had enormous difficulties with the legislature early in his tenure. He arrived in Harrisburg with an attitude of disdain for the legislature, vowing to change the way business was conducted there. In his first year, he and the legislature rarely agreed on anything. He had come to change the culture and viewed the anti-reform nature of that body with disdain he could not hide. Now,ultimately that did not prevent him from substantial legislative victories, but when tied to some serious health problems, one a quadruple bypass surgery, few would have predicated a one million vote victory over Barbara Hafer after a very difficult start. He was also aided by a good economy, and lucky for him the recession of 1991 struck after his election.

Tom Ridge continued what by now was a reoccurring pattern of a tough beginning for Pa governors. In his first year, he pushed an unpopular school choice proposal and after campaigning against a legislative pay hike, signed one. On the positive side, the governor secured the passage of several dozen crime fighting measures, but that was not sufficient to halt the slide of his job performance.  When he took office it had reached the mid 60′s but plummeted to the mid 40′s by the spring of 1996. And so the sobriquet one-term Tom emerged. Yet in his 1998 reelection year, his numbers had catapulted back to the mid 60′s. He also drew a weak Democratic opponent, Ivan Itkin, a state house member from Pittsburgh who managed to lose by a whopping by 27 points. Ridge benefited from low unemployment, an expanding economy, and Republican control of the state legislature during his time in office.

A similar situation confronted Ed Rendell. After defeating Attorney General Mike Fisher by nine points in 2002, Rendell, facing a budget deficit during his first year in office, pushed for an income tax hike which he secured just days before Christmas, missing the constitutional deadline for budget passage by more than five months. But remarkably in 2005, the year before he would stand for reelection, Rendell supported and signed into law the most unpopular pay hike in modern state history. His job performance slid to the mid-40′s, a ten point decline for him. Yet, in 2006, he defeated Lynn Swann by 21 points. Not arguably Rendell was a brilliant campaigner. He was assisted by the six-year itch, and the unpopularity of the Iraq war—which helped the Democrats win sweeping victories in Congress, regain control of the Pennsylvania House, and pick up four congressional seats in the state.

It is also relevant that Dick Thornburgh, the governor with the highest popularity and public support in his first year, had the toughest reelection in recent state history. His opponent was Alan Ertel, a little known congressman, and the election took place in the midst of the 1982 recession, the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. He could only squeak out a narrow 100,000 vote victory–another testimony to the power of the economy in determining electoral fate.

And so, history tells us that gubernatorial job performance and reelection prospects can rise and fall pretty quickly. At this writing, there are 16 months until the primary and 22 months until the general election. There is really only one conclusion: Corbett’s prospects for victory are really still to be fully determined. If he wins, he will have come back from a historically low job performance. If he is victorious, he will confirm the efficacy of the two-term rule.

(Polling sources: Millersville University Keystone Poll and Franklin & Marshall College Poll.)