This Day in History: , Lincoln Delivers the <br />Gettysburg Address.<br />November 19, 1863.<br />In just 272 words, <br />President Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the <br />most memorable speeches in American history.<br />The occasion was the dedication of a cemetery for <br />7,500 soldiers who fell during the Battle of Gettysburg.<br />Lincoln was invited as an afterthought <br />to say “a few appropriate remarks" <br />to consecrate the grounds.<br />His address lasted just <br />two or three minutes.<br />The speech is considered <br />to be the most eloquent <br />articulation of the democratic <br />vision ever written.<br />"... that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of <br />freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, <br />for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
