President Abraham Lincoln (ABC News)
November 20, 2013
The speech was really, really short
Lincoln's speech, a mere 271 words if you use the version that's attributed to Lincoln, took only two minutes. The New York Times reported of the Gettysburg Address:
"It was delivered (or rather read from a sheet of paper which the
speaker held in his hand) in a very deliberate manner, with strong
emphasis, and with a most business-like air."
The Gettysburg Address was ridiculed at first
One
of the world's best-remembered speeches, it includes the line, "The
world will little note, nor long remember what we say here." Ridiculed
at first in some prominent quarters -- The Chicago Times,
for one, citing "silly, flat and dish-watery utterances" -- the address
is now regarded as one of the finest speeches ever given. In 1963
Martin Luther King Jr., kicking off his "I Have a Dream" speech before a
crowd of 250,000 gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, noted
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation took effect "five score years ago."
The phrase of course invoked the address whose words were etched into
the interior of the monument just a few steps behind the civil rights
icon.
John Malveaux
No comments:
Post a Comment