ively explain Lincolns purpose and persuade unified support for it. Lincolns understanding of what the divided, grieving people of this nation needed was the key element in the success of his oration. In two minutes Lincoln was able to give them all pride, consoling, purpose, hope and a united goal. He showed them in order to obtain the new birth of freedom each side was fighting for they needed to come together as one nation, dedicated to the preservation of the nation the way it was conceived so many years before. Something no one had been able to achieve since the beginning of the separation of the North and South long before the war. The impact of the unusually brief speech was even hailed by Edward Everett, the national authority on rhetoric and oration, who wrote to Lincoln I should be glad to flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes.(World Book 166)...
