Fourscore 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 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 cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot
hallow this ground. The brave men, living and these dead, who struggled
here, have consecrated it far above our 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 honoured dead we take increased
devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion
that we here highly resolve that the 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, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Address by Abraham Lincoln at the Dedication of the National Cemetery at
Gettysburg, 19 November 1863
