Edward Everett (1794-1865) was America's first Ph.D. a United States Congressman Governor of
Massachusetts Ambassador to England President of Harvard University Secretary of State a
United States Senator and a Vice-Presidential candidate. In the midst of this distinguished
career he was also a famous and profound orator delivering hundreds of orations across the
nation and at least five of the most important speeches in American history. In this book
Everett's training as an orator and his career on the public stage are reviewed in the context
of his times often referred to as the Golden Age of American oratory. Through analyses of a
number of his most illustrious orations - such as the Phi Beta Kappa Society oration in 1824
his 4th of July oration at Worcester Massachusetts his eulogy to John Quincy Adams in 1848
his speech that saved Mount Vernon The Character of Washington delivered 137 times from
1856-1860 and his Gettysburg Oration delivered just prior to Lincoln's illustrious Gettysburg
Address - Everett is seen as a transformational figure. The book concludes that while unknown
to most Americans Everett's rhetoric of idealism optimism sentimentality and conciliation
provided the rising nation - America - with its sense of identity and its core principles.
