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 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.
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