"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.
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."