Gettysburg Address: Abraham Lincoln Rebukes Us From The Grave

By Banji Ojewale

Wednesday November 19, 2014 marked the 151^st  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 19^th 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”.