Gettysburg Address

[Steve]

My personal take is that it's more likely a coincidence that both Morais and Lincoln used the same phraseology. After all, Morais's speech was given on July 4, 1863 and Lincoln was consecrating the cemetery of the soldiers who sacrificed their lives to secure the Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg the day before that July 4th anniversary. It seems unlikely Lincoln would have seen a copy of the speech unless it had been mailed to him.

In an interesting side note, after searching the Lincoln collected works, I did find out that a copy of a different speech and prayer delivered by Rabbi Morais at his synagogue in 1862 was sent to Lincoln that year:

https://books.google.com/books?id=Q4ysBX...se&f=false