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 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.