gettysburg

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 
battlefield 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 cannot dedicate. . .we cannot consecrate. . . we cannot 
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.