Which November 1863 speech by Abraham Lincoln is only about two minutes long?

The Gettysburg Address was Abraham Lincoln’s November 1863 speech that lasted only about two minutes. Lincoln delivered it on November 19, 1863, at the dedication of Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, four and a half months after the Battle of Gettysburg.

The speech was not the ceremony’s main address. Edward Everett, a celebrated orator and former U.S. secretary of state, spoke for about two hours before Lincoln offered what had been described as brief “appropriate remarks.” Lincoln’s address contained only 271 or 272 words, depending on which manuscript or transcription is counted, yet it reframed the war as a test of democratic government and equality.

Lincoln honored the Union soldiers who had died at Gettysburg and urged the living to continue the work for which they had sacrificed. Everett later praised Lincoln by saying that he had come closer to the event’s central idea in two minutes than Everett had in two hours. The speech is sometimes confused with the Emancipation Proclamation, but that was an executive order issued on January 1, 1863, rather than a short dedication speech.