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 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 honoured 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,
and for the people,
shall not perish from the earth.