Terms of
Use
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.
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