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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