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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsLong speeches?. Who was Edward Everett? or the other speaker that day?
Last edited Wed Jan 31, 2018, 09:15 AM - Edit history (8)
Edward Everett was a well known speaker, politician, historian and well known and respected leader. (well known then, not now) Was governor of Mass. in the middle of the 1800s. Now he was asked to give one of his best speeches, which he spent a great time preparing for. It was at the dedication of a battlefield during the Civil War. The speech went on for almost 2 hours.. History of War, battles, killing etc. He covered everything. Over 13,000 words. This was to be his greatest speech.. It was November 19, 1863....
Well...the other speaker that day spoke for about 2 and 1/2 minutes. His speech, was short, to the point, and well respected. So..which speech is known about today? It is more than 150 years later. Have you ever heard of Edward Everett?..or have you heard of the Lincoln Gettysburg Address that goes,...."Four score and seven years ago,"...yes, 2 and 1/2 minutes.Here is the entire speech 272 words.
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"Fourscore 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 cannot dedicate, we cannot consecratewe cannot hallowthis 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 usthat from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotionthat we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vainthat 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."
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Considered by many to be one of the greatest speeches ever...272 words...Abraham Lincoln..November 19, 1863.....2 1/2 minutes....Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.......
lastlib
(23,204 posts)(I can still recite it., 48 years later) One of the epic statements of American history and politics.