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 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 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.