Gettysburg Address (version 3)

On a cold November afternoon in 1863, four and a half months after the bloodiest battle in American history left over 7,000 dead at a small Pennsylvania crossroads, Abraham Lincoln traveled to dedicate a cemetery for the Union war dead. He was not the main speaker. Edward Everett, the era's most celebrated orator, delivered a two-hour address. Lincoln rose after him and spoke for just two minutes. Two hundred and sixty-nine words. What he said redefined the Civil War's purpose and articulated a vision of government that still challenges America today: a nation 'conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.' This is that speech, the Nicolay manuscript version, presented here as it was first read aloud to a grieving nation. It is the shortest presidential inaugural address in American history, and arguably the most consequential document ever written on American soil.