to re-read the words that Abraham
Lincoln had to say to our country.
Then thank God for the freedoms we
enjoy today:
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 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 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.
