![]() ![]() The draft was to be sold to raise money for the Union cause at the New York Sanitary Fair. In 1864 Edward Everett, who had delivered the main oration at the Gettysburg dedication, asked Lincoln for a written copy of the speech. In 1916 the Hay family donated both the Nicolay copy and the Hay copy to the Library of Congress. ![]() The manuscript remained largely unknown in Hay’s papers until 1909, when it was first published. Lincoln wrote out the entire speech a second time on the same lined paper as the last page of the Nicolay copy and, according to the Hay family, presented that copy to John Hay. All of Nicolay’s presidential papers were then given to John Hay, Lincoln’s other secretary, for safekeeping. John Nicolay, one of Lincoln’s personal secretaries, was responsible for the president’s papers and this copy remained in his possession until he died in 1901. Historians believe that Lincoln began work on the speech in Washington and finished the text while in Gettysburg. Nicolay Copyīelieved to be the earliest surviving draft of the speech, the opening page is written on White House stationery and the second page on lined paper. Photograph courtesy of Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Abraham Lincoln with his two personal secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay. ![]()
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