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 the 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.
