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Monday, July 03, 2006

Fine speech

"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.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. 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.

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. 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 -- 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."


These were words spoken by President Abraham Lincoln on November 19, 1863 at the dedication of a new national cemetery outside the little Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg. The key note speaker at this dedication was not Mr. Lincoln, but Edward Everett, former Secretary of State, U.S. Senator, U.S. Representative, Governor of Massachusetts and president of Harvard University. At that time Everett was widely considered to be the nation's greatest orator. President Lincoln was invited almost as an after thought. Mr. Everett spoke for over two hours and Mr. Licoln for little more than two minutes. Any citizen of the United States would be hard pressed to explain who Edward Everett was, let alone quote any part of his speech from that day.