| Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on |
| 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 that field, as a final |
| resting place for those who here gave their lives that that |
| nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that |
| we should do this. |
| 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 |
| consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. |
| The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, |
| but it can never forget what they did here. |
| It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the |
| unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so |
| nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to |
| the great task remaining before us - that from these honored |
| dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they |
| gave the last full measure of devotion - |
| that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have |
| died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new |
| birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the |
| people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth. |
| |
| Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania |
