Gettysburg Address
Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
This is what I know so far:
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.
Posts Tagged ‘Address’
Date: Sunday February 21, 9:19 pm
Date: Wednesday February 17, 3:18 pm
The Gettysburg Address is a remarkable speech. It is only 272 words long and took only two minutes to deliver. But it had a profound effect on the nation—both then and now.
President Lincoln was not even the principal speaker on November 19, 1863 at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery, just four months after the battle there. The key speaker was Edward Everett, a renowned orator who talked for over two hours. Later Everett wrote Lincoln to say that “I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes.”
Just what was this central idea? Analyze each of these excerpts and see if you can arrive at its central idea.
1.
“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.”