Four score and seven years ago our fathers
brought forth upon 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 died here that the nation might live.
This we may, in all propriety, do.
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 hallowed it far above our poor
power to add or detract.
The world will little note, nor long remember
what we say here, while it can never forget
what they did here.
It is rather for us, the living, we here be
dedicated to the great task remaining before
us.
That from these honored dead we take increased
devotion to that cause for which they here
gave the last full measure of devotion—that
we here highly resolve that these dead shall
not have died in vain.
That the nation 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.
