Real Clear Politics lists its top ten speeches and explains why:
- Click here for the article.
#1? Lincoln's 1862 address - his second - click here for it.
Here's their description of it:
In 1862, Lincoln used his annual message to Congress to make a clear connection between the preservation of the Union and the abolition of slavery. "Without slavery the rebellion could never have existed; without slavery it could not continue," he argues.
The message came a little more than two months after Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation (it would officially go into effect a month later, on January 1, 1863). It also took place in the wake of an electoral rebuke to his Republican Party in the November elections. As a result, Lincoln attempts to strike a conciliatory tone, acknowledging the "great diversity of sentiment, and of policy, in regard to slavery, and the African race amongst us." He pushes a plan of "compensated emancipation" that would compensate states that abolished slavery before 1900, making more of a practical and financial case for the policy than a moral case.
He concludes, however, by returning to his thematic centerpiece, contending that freedom for the slaves is integral to the survival of the nation.
