Address at the Dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, November 19, 1863. Delivered by Abraham Lincoln , President of the United States of America
ABRAHAM LINCOLN and John Bright , the author of the specimen of English Eloquence broadcast last Sunday, had an admiration for each other based upon mutual characteristics. They shared an honesty, simplicity, and strength of character which compelled the attention and admiration not only of the people, but also of folk far more cultivated ' than themselves. Their eloquence proceeded from what Milton expressed in words, which appealed to Bright as a young man-' the serious and hearty love of truth,'
As a young man, Lincoln had been a great wrestler ; as an orator in later life, he wrestled summarily with words. His words did not beget words, like those of more literary speakers-they were the shortest, clearest, and toughest expressions of his thought. It is significant that the whole of his famous address at Gettysburg was so short that people unfamiliar with it think of it as the greatest passage in a long oration. The act of dedication, at which it, was spoken, fittingly commemorated the passing of the crisis in the Civil War. It was rendered memorable not by the florid address of a popular orator of the time, Edward Everett , who spoke first, but by the simple statement of Lincoln's thoughts upon a solemn occasion.