The DNA Selling Method (From Great Moments in History) by Patrick Hansen

Author:Patrick Hansen [Hansen, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Brave Publishing
Published: 2012-04-01T14:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

Winning Messages

Oratorical power does not arise from passionate declamation only. On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln demonstrated the equal power of using simple, yet eloquent words, quietly spoken to convey a message.

In the small town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in July of 1863, Union and Confederate forces clashed in a battle that brought enormous casualties. In three days of hard fighting, the Union army suffered over 23,000 casualties, the Confederate army over 28,000. When all was said and done, however, there was no question that the Confederate army suffered a much greater blow.

Later that year, a Gettysburg attorney conceived the idea of dedicating a portion of the battlefield as a National Soldiers Cemetery. Although President Lincoln was invited to speak, the main address was delivered by the former President of Harvard, and noted orator, Edward Everett. Everett spoke to a crowd of close to 20,000 people for over two hours. At the conclusion of Everett’s address, Abraham Lincoln rose to deliver a few “remarks.”

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 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 the government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Apart from the Sermon on the Mount, no speech has been so heavily analyzed by scholars. Abraham Lincoln spoke only 272 words in his Gettysburg address. Yet, in those ten sentences, he delivered one of history’s most memorable orations.

What is it about his address that is so fascinating to historians? Why are these ten sentences so mesmerizing to politicians? And, why have students of oratory been studying this address since its inception? The reason? Its message. It is the message of the speech that is captivating.

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