“The power that makes the grass grow, fruit ripen, and guides the bird in flight is in us all.” – Anzia Yezierska

From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst:

November 18

The principal speaker at the November 19, 1863 ceremony dedicating the Gettysburg cemetery was Edward Everett from Massachusetts. As an afterthought the organizers invited Lincoln ‘to make a few appropriate remarks.’ From Lincoln’s perspective, the dedication of this cemetery offered him the opportunity to lay out succinctly the North’s war aims – to explain why all these dead had not died in vain. This opportunity was particularly appealing in that virtually every Northern governor would be in attendance, and such a grouping, at that time, was a rarity indeed.

‘Strike when the iron is hot.’

- Anonymous