Political Quotes

“Madam President, 150 years ago today, President Abraham Lincoln gave one of the greatest speeches not just in U.S. history but in human history. In under 3 minutes and using just 10 sentences, President Lincoln spanned the past, present, and future of the American experiment and spoke to the aspirations, rights, and responsibilities not just of Americans but of humankind. It is astounding for us to realize that President Lincoln was invited to the dedication of the Nation's first national military cemetery almost as an afterthought. The event was organized around the schedule of former Harvard president Edward Everett, who was thought to be one of the Nation's greatest orators of the time. Everett was the featured speaker and, in the custom of that era, addressed the crowd for over 2 hours. President Lincoln, who had been invited to say ``a few appropriate words,'' followed Everett. President Lincoln wrote for the ear; he recited words and phrases as he committed them to paper. When he gave speeches, he spoke deliberately. His great speeches, including the Gettysburg Address, were as much theological in nature as they were political arguments. 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. President Lincoln borrowed a method of referring to time from the Psalms of the King James Bible, Psalm 90:10.…”