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LINCOLN'S GETTYSBURG ADDRESS
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.
presented by the woman's relief corps of colorado and wyoming
auxiliary to the grand army of the republic
1923
Abraham Lincoln
gettysburg, nov. 19, 1863
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