delivered from the battlefield, Gettysburg, PA, 19 November 1863
Address
[1] 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.1
[2.1] Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. [2.2] We are met on a great battle-field of that war. [2.3] 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. [2.4] It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
[3.1] But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. [3.2] The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. [3.3] The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. [3.4] It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here thus far so nobly advanced. [3.5] 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.2