Lincoln's Gettysburg address is widely seen as the US president's most famous speech. Let us look at what make the speech legendary.

"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 battle-field 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 can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not 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."

The Speech

1. Uncommon, But Understandable Syntaxes

Instead of the phrase, "Four score and seven years ago", an average speaker would use "eighty-seven years ago", and argue that the phrase is archaic. What you ought to understand is that speeches are not made only for the messages we are trying to pass; it should also be designed to choke life out of boredom in the hall.

I recently read a respected national daily where the writer used "Tell me, if thou knowest". The writer was arguing in support of Yahweh and His acclaimed Son. Don't some of you critics still use the sentence "Nigeria, I hail thee"?

What we are saying here is that you should refuse to say a thing the way someone out there would say it. Instead of saying B2Spirits is my name, say I am B2Spirits by name. To further buttress my assertion, I will cite what usually happens in a church where there are senior and junior preachers.

If a senior pastor is on seat, and the junior pastor is given the chance to preach, he must acknowledge the presence of the senior pastor, citing senior pastor's superiority in the house. To do this, most pastors say, "I thank God for the privilege given to me by our father in the Lord to minister on this altar." When Bishop Oyedepo's second-in-comand (Bishop Abioye) wanted to do this sometime ago, he said, "Bible says 'Lot, who went with Abraham, was also blessed.'" That's my story on this altar." For the next two minutes, whistling, shouts, and giggles rented the whole of the Faith Tabernacle in Ota.

"We are met on a great battle-field 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."

An average speaker might say, "As America is being plagued by civil war, we are dedicating this land in Gettysburg as a cemetery for the slain soldiers". Those present already knew that Lincoln was there that day to dedicate a cemetery. So, there was no need reminding the crowd of the purpose of the gathering word for word.

The Message

1. Very Deep Meanings

Lincoln succeeded in uniting the South with the rest of America with the contents of this speech. Dissect the words, and see what I'm talking about. The speech is pregnant with meanings.

There was a time a friend of mine posted a picture that depicts Nigeria as a failed state on Facebook. In my comment, I wanted to say something gorier and posted the following:

“Considering the entrenched ability of her atrocious socio-political nature, your country has been stripped of her most grandiose pretensions such as the monomania of including herself among the progressive nations of the world. Being a country that had seen better days, including her in the list of the next eleven emerging economies after Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC countries) is like trivializing the largeness of a behemoth, and underrating the horror of its nature. We have a country that is truly bed-ridden, and resistant to all medications. Diagnosis: ‘Acquired Self-mutilation Syndrome (ASS)’. Prognosis: Unlikely to recover. This nation’s cancer is terminal, and since she is her own parasite, it is impossible to eliminate without killing the cause. At death, her epitaph will be cast in brass and reads: ‘Herein lies a woman that ‘canivorized’ herself to death”.

Comments made on my comments were many, and hilarious. That's killing two birds with a stone -- making their day, and stating the true state of the nation. We're basically agreed; there was no need to quibble over semantics.

The Messenger

1. Lincoln Was An Avid Reader.

He once said, "My best friend is the man who will give me a book I haven't read." His favorite book had a very long title: The Life of George Washington, With Curious Anecdotes, Equally Honorable To Himself and Exemplary To His Young Countrymen. Lincoln kept the book in a corner of the loft. During one night, rain from a big storm stained the cover of the book. To pay for the damage, Lincoln spent three days harvesting corn for the farmer from whom he borrowed it, I gathered.

2. How Lincoln Honed His Skill

"When he was young, he stood in doorways and on tree stumps and imitated speakers." -- Illinois Periodicals Online.

http://speakersspell..com/2017/03/demystifying-public-speaking-abraham.html?m=1

Makes sense