Book Review: The Gettysburg Address: A Graphic Adaptation by J. Hennessey et al.

The Gettysburg Address: A Graphic Adaptation written by Jonathan Hennessey, art by Aaron McConnell, and lettering by Tom Orzechowski

Using the Gettysburg Address as a framework for telling the story of the American Civil War is the conceit governing this book. The premise intrigued me so I picked it up off the library shelf. The narrative starts off with a quick look at the horrors of the Civil War before zeroing in on the Gettysburg Address as an encapsulation of the major issues involved and as a signpost pointing both forward and backward in history. The narrative moves from the American War for Independence all the way into the middle of the twentieth century with the great successes of the Civil Rights Movement. 

But the book has a lot of problems.

 

The book establishes a false division between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Their claim is that the Declaration is full of philosophical “unionist” ideas that are different from the Constitution's concepts that the states contractually join a union that they can leave (the defense made by the "secessionists"). The book asks where did States Rights go in the Constitution, a question that implies that the Constitution is more "unionist" than the Declaration. The authors completely leave out the Bill of Rights, the tenth of which explicitly says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The two documents are not in opposition. The Constitution is an outgrowth or a fruition of the Declaration of Independence, especially after the disastrous Articles of Confederation, which crafted a too weak federal government that clearly was not working. This book does talk about the Articles of Confederation but fails to draw the line between the Declaration and the Constitution that runs through the Articles.

The book also does a great disservice to Abraham Lincoln. They insist that he always harbored the idea that the slaves should be freed and sent to another country, their own country. He did consider this scheme but quickly rejected it as impractical and unjust. Also, after quoting Lincoln saying, "There is no reason in the world why the Negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence--the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," [p. 97] the authors claim that Lincoln thought of these as Civil Rights and did not want the former slaves to to have Political Rights, i.e. the right to vote, hold office, and serve on juries. The whole point of the Declaration is that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are rights held prior to, above, and beyond the political system under which people live. They are natural rights, not granted by a civil or a political body. Men and women possess these rights because of their basic humanity (just as the white men possess these rights). Lincoln clearly argues that a government denying these natural rights is wrong.

I liked the idea of this book but was very disappointed in the execution.

Not recommended.