Fourscore 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 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 honoured 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.
