England cannot again, as hitherto, single-handed manage any power-[applause and uproar]-but I will say that England and America together for religion and liberty[A voice: "Soap, soap," uproar, and great applause]— are a match for the world. [Applause; a voice: "They don't want any more soft soap."] Now, gentlemen and ladies [A voice: "Sam Slick," and another voice: Ladies and gentlemen, if you please "]-when I came I was asked whether I would answer questions, and I very readily consented to do so, as I had in other places; but I will tell you it was because I expected to have the opportunity of speaking with some sort of ease and quiet. [A voice: "So you have."] I have for an hour and a half spoken against a storm 5-[Hear, hear!]—and you yourselves are witnesses that, by the interruption, I have been obliged to strive with my voice, so that I no longer have the power to control this assembly. [Applause.] And although I am in spirit perfectly willing to answer any question, and more than glad of the chance, yet I am by this very unnecessary opposition to-night incapacitated physically from doing it. Ladies and gentlemen, I bid you good-evening.

Why did the announcement that Mr. Beecher was to speak in Liverpool meet with intense opposition?

How can you account for the fact that an audience that had assembled presumably to hear Beecher speak seemed so unwilling to listen?

What means did Beecher take to gain the sympathy of his audience?

Was Beecher successful in gaining the attention of his Liverpool audience?

Do you think Beecher, in spite of the uproar against which he strove to speak, accomplished anything of value that night? Do you think that Beecher delivered this speech approximately in the form that he outlined before he came to the hall?

Can you find an instance in his speech where Beecher changed

the conclusion of a sentence so as to turn the laugh on opponents who had interrupted him?

When Beecher said that England might say to her first-born child, "Come," do you suppose he had in mind such an emergency as the Great War?

What had Beecher hoped to accomplish in his English addresses, and to what extent was he successful?

LINCOLN'S SPEECH AT GETTYSBURG

November 19, 1863

Ar Gettysburg, July 1, 2, and 3, General Meade and the Federal army brought to an end the long series of Northern defeats that had culminated in the alarming disasters at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. Gettysburg was the turning point in the Civil War. Together with Grant's success at Vicksburg, it brought new hope to the defenders of the Union, although it was still evident that a long hard struggle remained.

The state of Pennsylvania soon after the battle gave to the Federal government seventeen and a half acres of land to be used as a national cemetery in which to bury the fifty thousand men who fell on the field. On November 19, 1863, the cemetery was formally dedicated. Edward Everett was the orator of the day; but President Lincoln was asked to make a few remarks in which he was formally to set apart the grounds to their use.

On the train that took President Lincoln to Gettysburg he wrote out with pencil the words that he planned to speak. At Gettysburg a grand procession accompanied by military music marched to the summit of the little hill overlooking the battlefield, where amid the trees a stand for the speakers had been erected. Edward Everett delivered an elaborate polished oration two hours long in which he reviewed the objects of the war and the battle and its consequences. The President then spoke the few simple words that the

world has since appraised as one of the greatest speeches ever delivered.

SPEECH AT THE DEDICATION OF THE NATIONAL CEMETERY AT

GETTYSBURG

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

FOURSCORE 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 battlefield1 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 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.

Show that this speech was peculiarly appropriate to the occasion of its delivery.

In what respect is the central thought of this speech like the central thought of Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration?

In what respect is the conception of democratic government as expressed in this speech like that expressed by Webster in his Reply to Hayne?

Is there anything in this speech that indicates that Lincoln was conscious that the nation was fighting to preserve democratic institutions and not merely the American Union?

What did Lincoln mean by " a new birth of freedom"?

Can you tell why this speech is considered one of the greatest ever delivered?