You're listening to an airwave media podcast.

This is Michael Medved.

Atovon Bismarck, the Chancellor of Germany, once said that God offers special protection to drunkards, lost dogs, children, and the United

States of America.

We'll explore that special protection and what it means in the American miracle.

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Standing beneath the serene sky overlooking these broad fields, the mighty Alleghenes,

dimly towering before us, the graves of our brethren beneath our feet.

It is with hesitation that I raise my poor voice to break the eloquent silence of God and nature.

Those of course are the immortal words of the Gettysburg Address,

you know, the other one. This This is the address before the one you learn about in school, the one given by Edward Everett.

Accomplished man, Harvard trained, former Unitarian minister with a PhD from a German college.

Former President of Harvard, former Governor, Congressman, Senator, secretary of state, you name it.

And yes, he was the vice presidential candidate on the Constitutional Union Party in 1860.

This was not an unknown man. He technically ran against Lincoln. As part of that effort,

he received the votes of two Confederate states, Tennessee and Virginia, to be their vice president. This was a national figure. He was a

great speaker and dedicating battlefields was, as you might say, old hat.

When he died they would call him a modern day Cicero and with good reason. So

that's why after the poet Longfellow declined making a speech at the ceremony the poet Whittier declined making a speech at the ceremony. The poet Whittier declined making a

speech at the Gettysburg site. Few others declined. They called on Edward Everett. It was a logical choice.

The person to sound the proper note needed for this dedication.

There was November 1863, thousands of spectators for what was just

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