After Everett left the podium to thunderous applause, Lincoln began his speech: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Of the brave men who sacrificed their lives in battle, he maintained that “these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” His words were met with polite but unenthusiastic applause, convincing Lincoln that the speech was a “flat failure.” Yet Everett was awed, insisting that Lincoln had said more in two minutes than he, himself, had said in two hours.