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 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 nation might live. It is
altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not
consecrate -- we can not 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.