author
Edward Everett
1794–1865
A brilliant 19th-century American speaker and public servant, he moved with ease between the pulpit, the classroom, diplomacy, and national politics. He is still often remembered for the long address delivered just before Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, but his career reached far beyond that single famous day.
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About the author
Born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1794, Edward Everett was known early for his unusual gifts as a student and speaker. He graduated from Harvard at a young age, served first as a Unitarian minister in Boston, and then returned to Harvard as a professor of Greek and later as the university's president.
Everett built one of the most varied public careers of his era. He represented Massachusetts in the U.S. House, served as governor of Massachusetts, minister to Great Britain, U.S. senator, and eventually secretary of state. Throughout it all, he was admired as one of the country's best orators, with a polished style that made him a major public figure in the decades before the Civil War.
Many readers know him because he spoke at Gettysburg on November 19, 1863, just before Abraham Lincoln gave the address that became one of the best-known speeches in American history. Everett died in Boston in 1865, leaving behind a reputation as a scholar, statesman, educator, and one of the great public speakers of his generation.