Lincoln’s
Voice 
If you always envisioned a robed Mr. Lincoln speaking in the empathic, deep, heavy manor of the astute orator, you might well be surprised. There are of course no recordings of Lincoln’s voice and most of those who heard him speak hardly devoted a sentence about the subject. Most of what was said pertained to Lincoln’s cantankerous gestures and management of humor in a way to make his audiences laugh at jokes even before they were told.
One listener at a Republican Convention in Cincinnati reported that Lincoln spoke “with singular clearness of enunciation and deliberation, duly punctuating every sentence as he uttered it.” Another suggested that his voice was high-pitched with a tone almost like a trumpet that could be heard a great distance away -- a great asset in a day before microphones. Others reported a sharp and powerful voice at times sometimes fluctuating to a shrill and unpleasant tone.
A bystander described Lincoln’s voice at Gettysburg as “sharp, unmusical, and treble.” Most indicated that Mr. Lincoln would often start a speech slowly and tend to raise his voice when excited, but speaking fluently with hardly an error in language or facts.
Lincolns accent was of course a product of his home state of Kentucky. But still there was something more – as some have described, “marvelous, unique, puzzling”.
Most Americans seem to have made up their own mind of how Lincoln sounded when he spoke. But the truth is that he was a tenor with a voice both high-pitched and shrill.
Has your opinion changed?