Abraham Lincoln is known for delivering some of the most powerful speeches in American history. But there’s one that shook the room so hard, no one wrote it down.

In this episode of Smartest Year Ever, Gordy unravels the mystery behind Lincoln’s so-called “Lost Speech”—a fiery address delivered at the 1856 Illinois Republican Convention that electrified the crowd, helped shape the early Republican Party, and may have been too controversial to publish.

So why didn’t anyone record it? Was it really too powerful to write down? Or was it buried on purpose?

Watch to uncover the legend, the theories, and the strange absence of one of Lincoln’s most pivotal moments.

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Sources:

• Donald, D. (1995). Lincoln. Simon & Schuster.
  

• Holzer, H. (2004). Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President. Simon & Schuster.
  

• Zall, P. M. (1957). Abe Lincoln Laughing: Humorous Anecdotes from Original Sources by and about Abraham Lincoln. University of California Press.
  

• National Park Service. (n.d.). Abraham Lincoln and the Lost Speech. Retrieved from https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/lostspeech.htm
  

• Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project, Northern Illinois University. Retrieved from https://lincoln.lib.niu.edu
  

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