What speech of Abraham Lincoln's is famous because it is an example of perfect English?

MrYeti

All I can find is that a letter he wrote to a Mrs. Bixby is known as: "The famous Bixby letter," the legend declared, "the model of perfect English." http://www.nhinet.org/beran.htm [Added reference link - McG] Apr 01 01, 6:43 AM

Gnomon

The Gettysburg Address Lincoln's powerful rhetoric defined the issues of the war for the nation, the world, and posterity. His extraordinary command of the English language was evidenced in the Gettysburg Address, a speech dedicating the cemetery at Gettysburg that he delivered on November 19, 1863. The speech defied Lincoln's own prediction that "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here." Lincoln's second inaugural address is also greatly admired and often quoted. In these speeches, Lincoln articulated better than anyone else the rationale behind the Union cause. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln [Added reference - McG] Apr 01 01, 6:58 PM

MonkeyOnALeash

Letter to Mrs. Bixby In the fall of 1864, Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew wrote to President Lincoln asking him to express condolences to Mrs. Lydia Bixby, a widow who was believed to have lost five sons during the Civil War. Lincoln's letter to her was printed by the Boston Evening Transcript. Later it was revealed that only two of Mrs. Bixby's five sons died in battle (Charles and Oliver). One deserted the army, one was honorably discharged, and another deserted or died a prisoner of war. The authorship of the letter has been debated by scholars, some of whom believe it was written instead by John Hay, one of Lincoln's White House secretaries. The original letter was destroyed by Mrs. Bixby, who was a Confederate sympathizer and disliked President Lincoln. Copies of an early forgery have been circulating for many years, causing many people to believe they have the original letter. http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/bixby.htm [Added text from the reference link - McG] Feb 19 08, 6:12 AM