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.
