Lincoln Director Steven Spielberg Honors Gettysburg Address Anniversary at Citizenship Ceremony

Director's moving words are followed up a naturalization ceremony in which several immigrants are sworn in as new U.S. citizens

By Peter Gicas Nov 19, 2012 7:16 PMTags
Steven SpielbergAP Photo/Patrick Semansky

Having helmed the hit historical drama, Lincoln, Steven Spielberg certainly knows a thing or two about the 16th president of the United States.

So it seems only appropriate that the director should give a speech at Soldier's National Cemetery to commemorate the 149th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address.

"I've never stood any place on earth where it's easier to be humble than here. Gettysburg. Delivering an address," Spielberg told the crowd before him on Monday, Entertainment Weekly reports. "Humble hardly covers it."

But the Oscar winner noted that it wasn't just the fact that he was speaking "where Lincoln uttered words that helped change the course of American history by changing how we understand ourselves and the whole point of American democracy," but also that "all the glory and all the tragedy we associate with the Civil War resides most palpably, and most indelibly here."

Spielberg's moving words came just before a naturalization ceremony in which several immigrants took the oath of allegiance to become new U.S. citizens.