jazzeum
Four Star General
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2005
- Messages
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In late 1863 David Wills, the head of the committee to dedicate the Gettysburg cemetery, asked President Lincoln to make a "few appropriate remarks." However, Lincoln was not to be the main speaker that day. That honor belonged to Edward Everett. Everett had had a very distinguished career by that point, having served, among other posts, as Minister (Ambassador) to England, President of Harvard University and the U.S. Congress (as both Senator and Congressman), as well as having run in 1860 for Vice President under the Consitutional Union Party banner.
Today no one knows the Everett speech (let alone Everett) but he was the keynote speaker and the speech was over two hours long, which was not at all out of the ordinary; I read his speech several years ago when reading Garry Wills' book, Lincoln at Gettysburg, and it indeed it is long.
This article in the NY Times Disunion blog attempts to correct that imbalance, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/19/the-other-gettysburg-address/?_r=0
On the day after the dedication ceremony, he wrote to Lincoln: “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.”
Today no one knows the Everett speech (let alone Everett) but he was the keynote speaker and the speech was over two hours long, which was not at all out of the ordinary; I read his speech several years ago when reading Garry Wills' book, Lincoln at Gettysburg, and it indeed it is long.
This article in the NY Times Disunion blog attempts to correct that imbalance, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/19/the-other-gettysburg-address/?_r=0
On the day after the dedication ceremony, he wrote to Lincoln: “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.”