Edward Everett

Born in Boston in 1794, Edward Everett became known as a minister, scholar, educator, diplomat, and politician. He taught at Harvard and later served as the university’s president, building a reputation for polished learning and remarkable public speaking.

Public life carried him through an unusual range of roles: member of the U.S. House of Representatives, governor of Massachusetts, U.S. minister to Great Britain, U.S. senator, and secretary of state under Millard Fillmore. He was widely admired in his own time for ceremonial speeches and patriotic oratory.

Everett is still often mentioned alongside Abraham Lincoln because he gave the main address at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg in 1863, just before Lincoln delivered the brief remarks that became the Gettysburg Address. He died in 1865, after a career that placed him near the center of American intellectual and political life.