*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 the earth.
*
