What's the greatest speech in American history? The Gettysburg Address? It's a heavyweight for sure. Here's why this two-minute speech may claim the title.

It was hot. The Battle of Gettysburg raged from July 1-3, 1863. Soldiers from both armies—Union and Confederate—were burdened with heavy uniforms and weapons. Heatstroke and heat exhaustion were an ongoing danger. 

On the third day of the battle, the hot weather broke and a thunderstorm came. The wounded were still lying on the field, and those near the flooding Plum Run Creek drowned. The forces of nature, it was clear, could be just as deadly as the opposing army.¹

A famous speech with simple but soaring rhetoric would follow. But the battle that resulted in the speech was unforgiving and ghastly in its toll of over 45,000 dead and wounded.

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The speech was given on November 19, 1863, and both the weather and the event were vastly different from the battle four months earlier. The speech, delivered by President Abraham Lincoln, has come to be known as Gettysburg Address. It is often called the greatest speech in our history.

Did Lincoln—the leader during the country's great cataclysm—realize he was about to achieve immortality as a speaker that day in a small town in Pennsylvania? Perhaps not. After all, he had prepared a remarkably brief 270-word speech for the occasion.

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President Lincoln Offers A Short Flight Into History

But it was indeed a magnificent speech, despite the mere two-and-a-half minutes it took to speak it. Interestingly, the president didn't even have top billing that day. The dedication of the Union cemetery following the Battle of Gettysburg in July was to feature Massachusetts politician and famed orator Edward Everett.

As was typical of the era, Everett wrote a two-hour oration and delivered it from memory. Yet he was moved to write to Lincoln the next day, "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."

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Though brief, Lincoln's "dedicatory remarks" were prepared with care. Contrary to rumor, he didn't write his speech on the back of an envelope in the train on the way to Gettysburg. Here, then, are three reasons Lincoln's powerful evocation of the solemnity of that day in Pennsylvania has endured:

1. Conciseness. Lincoln lays out in just 10 sentences the momentous elements of the day and its significance. They are: the central founding principal of the nation; the solemn occasion that brought everyone to Gettysburg; and the bittersweet burden the living have to carry on the devotion of the Union soldiers who died in that place to preserve liberty. The "little speech," as Lincoln later called it, is thought by some to be "the most eloquent articulation of the democratic vision ever written."²

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Contrast this with the opening of Everett's featured oration. As befits a leading speechmaker of his era, Everett's lines are soaring and beautiful and exemplify the oratorial standards of the day. But compared to Lincoln's spare and evocative style, Everett's efforts are flabby, verbose, and wholly lacking in impact. Here is his opening:

Standing beneath this serene sky, overlooking these broad fields now reposing from the labors of the waning year, the mighty Alleghenies dimly towering before us, the graves of our brethren beneath our feet, it is with hesitation that I raise my poor voice to break the eloquent silence of God and Nature. But the duty to which you have called me must be performed; grant me, I pray you, your indulgence and your sympathy.

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2. Simplicity. Compare the rhetorical style of the two speakers. You'll immediately notice Lincoln's verbal power and Everett's long-windedness. Here are some of the descriptions penned and then spoken by Everett: "obsequies of the citizens who fell in battle," "bones carefully gathered from the funeral pyre," "votive offerings of friends and relatives," "the last tributes of surviving affection," "lamentations for the beloved," "shaded with trees sacred to Minerva." Each of these rhetorical bouquets would have been fresh in ancient Greece (and all of them happen to be in only the second paragraph of Everett's speech).

Now Lincoln: "new nation," "all men are created equal," "met on a battlefield," "gave their lives that that nation might live," "fitting and proper that we should do this," "dedicated to the unfinished work," "increased devotion to that cause," "a new birth of freedom," "of the people, by the people, for the people." Lincoln's sole rhetorical flourish, "four score and seven years ago" (for 87 years) is forgivable given the utter simplicity of what followed.

3. Eloquence. No audience has ever been impressed by the vast learning or verbal acrobatics of a speaker. Eloquence arises from simple, concrete words filled with meaning and used to evoke emotions listeners know intimately. Listen or read Winston Churchill's speeches, much closer to our own time, and you'll understand how this is achieved. Edward Everett's references to the funeral pyres, mournful processions and orations simply couldn't compete with Abraham Lincoln's reminder to his listeners of the dead Union soldiers' "last full measure of devotion." 

It's said that some listeners that day were shocked to realize Lincoln's speech was over almost before it began. If so, they could reflect that they'd heard a few simple, concise, and eloquent remarks paying tribute to exceptional human beings on a momentous occasion. Exactly the kind of thing, that is, that great speeches are supposed to be all about.

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address:

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. 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 can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow, this 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 have fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that 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.

_______________________

Sources:

¹ https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/weather/severe/this-day-in-weather-history-july-1-1863-the-battle-of-gettysburg

² https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/lincoln-delivers-gettysburg-address

Gettysburg Address Image: Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/resource/mal.4356500/?sp=1&r=-0.109,0.239,1.182,0.959,0

Everett note to Lincoln: Bob Greene, "The Forgotten Gettysburg Addresser, The Wall Street Journal, 22-23 June 2013, A15.

Everett's speech: http://www.civilwarhome.com/everettgettysburg.htm

Lincoln's speech: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler. The text above is from the so-called "Bliss Copy," one of several versions which Lincoln wrote, and believed to be the final version. http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/speeches/gettysburg.htm

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Gary Genard is an actor, author, and expert in public speaking training and overcoming speaking fear. His company, Boston-based The Genard Method offers live 1:1 Zoom executive coaching  and corporate group training worldwide. In 2022 for the ninth consecutive year, Gary has been ranked by Global Gurus as One of the World’s Top 30 Communication Professionals. He is the author of the Amazon Best-Seller How to Give a Speech. His second book, Fearless Speaking, was named in 2019 as "One of the 100 Best Confidence Books of All Time." His handbook for presenting in videoconferences, Speaking Virtually offers strategies and tools for developing virtual presence in online meetings. His latest book is Speak for Leadership: An Executive Speech Coach's Secrets for Developing Leadership Presence. Contact Gary here.