Have great day. Thank you very much. So welcome, everyone. This is i. Im president of the the Lincoln Group of d. C. My name is David Jay Kent and on tonights special program, the Lincoln Group, what they said marks 160th anniversary of lincolns gettysburg address, which was given november 19th, 1863. Im going to kick off program by reading the gettysburg address so that we all have it in our mind because its very short. Then three of our members will each discuss one aspect of this brief, but revealing elegy our nation first tom peet well discuss. Lincoln viewed the declaration of independence and not the constitution as a nations key founding. John. I mean, john obrien, sorry john o brien well discuss lincolns use of religious symbolism in the address and then ed epstein. Well talk about how lincolns two minute speech at gettysburg changed american political oratory forever. After that, all, members will be invited to offer their own and questions. The discussion i will be tonights m
event. welcome, welcome to the september meeting of the lincoln group of the district of columbia. i am david jay kent, president of the lincoln group of the district of columbia. this is kind of a special night because, not only as our first meeting since june, but we also have zoom, we have video being recorded. and this is my official book launch for my new book, lincoln: the fire of genius he. so [applause] thank you. i know a lot of people but books and they came, and i appreciate that. i m going to give a talk tonight about lincoln: the fire of genius. and basically look at, well, let me look at the subtitle. i think that really describes the book. it s how abraham lincoln s commitment to science and technology helped modernize america. that is what i m going to talk about tonight. just to give you a little background, i m going to talk about, i guess, i ll start with the book is really kind of you can piece it out to three different sections. the first days, what