And on this day, Nov. 19, one of the most momentous of them all was delivered on a battlefield in Gettysburg by a President eager to end a bloody civil war.
It took Abraham Lincoln only two minutes to deliver in 1863 what will resonate and last forever in the hearts and minds of Americans when he vowed so eloquently to end inequality and injustice inherent in slavery.
As a speechwriter who has written speeches for presidents of television networks and CEO’s of America’s largest companies, I treasure the spoken word and Lincoln that day never ceases to inspire with his flair to uplift and unify what was then our country torn apart.
God bless him for he succeeded and we are today, despite our occasional differences, the strongest, most proudly united country on this earth.
On that memorable day, Lincoln was not even the featured speaker.
Noted orator Edward Everett spoke for nearly two hours, while Lincoln spoke for just two minutes.
In his powerful address, Lincoln embraced the Declaration of Independence, recalling how the nation was “conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
By resurrecting these promises, Lincoln committed post-Civil War America to “a new birth of freedom” eventually leading to the abolishment of slavery and a commitment to freedom and equality embedded into the Constitution, and eventually banning racial discrimination in voting.
In that momentous two minutes, those amendments would make Lincoln’s “new birth of freedom” for us all a constitutional reality.
My hope is that this took you only two minutes to read but what Lincoln said that immortal day will remain always in our collective memory as we are all together The United States of America!
Tom Madden is an author and CEO of TransMedia Group, a public relations firm he started when he left NBC. He loves his country and is proud to have served eight years in The New Jersey National Guard in his home state. Today lives in Boca Raton, Florida, where his PR firm is now located serving clients worldwide.
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