Abraham Lincoln made many notable addresses and speeches during his
career previous to the time of his election to the Presidency.
However, beautiful in thought and expression as they were, they were not
appreciated by those who heard and read them until after the people
of the United States and the world had come to understand the man who
delivered them.
Lincoln had the rare and valuable faculty of putting the most sublime
feeling into his speeches; and he never found it necessary to incumber
his wisest, wittiest and most famous sayings with a weakening mass of
words.
He put his thoughts into the simplest language, so that all might
comprehend, and he never said anything which was not full of the deepest
meaning.