The Gettysburg Address



Lincoln's Address at Gettysburg, 1863


Fourscore 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 restingplace 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 the earth.
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