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.