29 lines
1.5 KiB
Text
29 lines
1.5 KiB
Text
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Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
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continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the
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proposition that all men are created equal.
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Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation,
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or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are
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met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a
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portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here
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gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting
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and proper that we should do this.
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But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate
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-- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead,
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who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to
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add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we
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say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the
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living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they
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who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us
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to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that
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from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for
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which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here
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highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that
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this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that
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government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not
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perish from the earth.
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Abraham Lincoln
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November 19, 1863
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