Gettysburg Address (1863)
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought
forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived
in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that
"all men are created equal"
Now we are engaged in a great civil
war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so
conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are
met on a great battle field of that war. We have come
to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place
for those who died here, that the nation might live.
This we may, in all propriety do. But, in a larger
sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate
-- we can not hallow, this ground-- The brave men,
living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed
it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The
world will little note, nor long remember what we
say here; while it can never forget what they did
here.
It is rather for us, the living, to
stand here, we here be dedica-ted to the great task
remaining before us -- that, from these honored dead
we take increased devotion to that cause for which
they here, gave the last full measure of devotion
-- that we here highly resolve these dead shall not
have died in vain; that the nation, 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.
