Abraham Lincoln:  His Best Speech

The only confirmed photo of Abraham Lincoln (circled) at Gettysburg, taken about noon, just after Lincoln arrived and some three hours before the speech. To Lincoln's right is his bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon. Credit Wikipedia Today is the anniversary of the the Gettysburg Address.  It is the 149th anniversary to be exact.  It is on this day in 1863 that President Abraham Lincoln delivered what may historians consider one of the most well known speeches in American history.  The speech was delivered in just over two minutes and has its historical significance grounded in individual rights and the importance of democracy. Lincoln, a lawyer, is inspiring to the lawyers at our firm because, in addition to being one of our greatest presidents, he was a small firm lawyer committed to serving his the people in his community.  His great leadership was molded by his career as a small firm lawyer traveling from town to town to provide representation to those who needed legal help.  Lincoln, the small firm lawyer, is an inspiration to all of us at the firm and a reminder of our commitment to serving the people in our community. The text of Lincoln's  speech has been quoted and adapted numerous times through out history.  In fact, Martin Luther King referenced the Gettysburg Address when he stood on the step of the the Lincoln Memorial and delivered his I have a dream speech.  You can read the full text of the Gettysburg Address below.   The Gettysburg Address 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. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom— and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.