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
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 may 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.
November 19, 1863
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