Showing posts with label Battle of Gettysburg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Battle of Gettysburg. Show all posts

Friday, November 21, 2014

Gettysburg Address: Abraham Lincoln Rebukes Us From The Grave

By Banji Ojewale
Wednesday November 19, 2014 marked the 151st  anniversary of the delivery of the Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln, the President of the US at the time of the American Civil War in the 19th Century. Lincoln delivered the speech to commemorate the gruesome Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania and to dedicate a national cemetery for slain soldiers.

























*Abraham Lincoln: 16th President of 
the United States  (pix:planetfigure) 

It was a brief oration that lasted only a few minutes. The Lincoln presentation 272 words – appeared to pale next to that of a well known national orator Professor Edward Everett whose speech, running into nearly two hours, came ahead of the president’s.
The crowd gave Lincoln what an observer described as a “perfunctory applause”. It was a euphemism for unstated rejection of the speech! But the professional Everett instantly noticed the landing of a new benchmark for oratorical discipline and ingenuity. “My speech will soon be forgotten,”  he told Lincoln. “Yours will never be. How gladly would I exchange my hundred pages for your twenty lines”.