I - 15 Address at Gettysburg

Address at Gettysburg

Fourscore 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(2) Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated(3), can long endure. We are met(4) 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(5). 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(6)  --  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 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  these  dead  shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under Cod, shall have a new birth of  freedom;  and  that  government  of  tile  people,  by  the  people,  for  the people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth(7).