Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address stands with the Apology of Socrates and the Funeral Oration of Pericles among the great speeches of human history. In this episode, Diana Schaub, Devorah Goldman and Daniel Wiser, Jr., discuss why it can be hard to appreciate the scope of Lincoln’s achievement. To truly understand how a statement so brief could run so deep and last so long, Schaub says we must carefully consider its substance, structure, and place in Lincoln’s thought.

Diana Schaub is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, where she works on American political thought and history. She is also a professor of political science at Loyola University Maryland, where she has taught for almost three decades. This podcast is inspired by Diana’s essay from the Spring 2014 issue of National Affairs, “Lincoln at Gettysburg.”