Great Speeches

For someone who claimed he had been educated by littles -- a little now and a little then -- Abraham Lincoln displayed a remarkable facility in his use of the written word. The simple yet memorable eloquence of his speeches proclamations and personal correspondence is recorded here in a representative collection of 16 documents.<br>This volume contains complete and unabridged the Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield Illinois (1838) which emphasized a theme Lincoln was to return to repeatedly namely the capacity of a people to govern themselves; the House Divided speech at the Republican State Convention in Illinois (1858); the First Inaugural Address (1861) in which he appealed to the people of an already divided union for sectional harmony; the Gettysburg Address (1863) a speech delivered at ceremonies dedicating a part of the Gettysburg battlefield as a cemetery; the Letter to Mrs. Bixby (1864) expressing Lincoln's regrets over the wartime deaths of her five sons; the Second Inaugural Address (March 1865) urging a post-war nation to bind up its wounds and show charity for all; and his Last Public Address (April 11 1865). New notes place the speeches and other documents in their respective historical contexts.<br>An invaluable reference for history students this important volume will also fascinate admirers of Abraham Lincoln Americana enthusiasts Civil War buffs and any lover of the finely crafted phrase.