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 battlefield 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 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.
One thought on “The Gettysburg Address delivered on November 19, 1863”
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Letting the words speak for themselves, much like Lincoln did 143 years ago. Good choice, NewMexiKen.
If any words ever could stand alone and still impart a powerful meaning, it is these 272 words.
I just had an image in my head about how a speech like this would be ruined today. We’d have a half hour of talking heads leading up to it. They’d be guessing about what he was doing before the speech and what he was going to say. Then, after the speech, there would be two hours of talking heads (wearing both red and blue ties). They’d judge every word and the length of the speech, of course.
Makes you wish for a time before television . . . at least as far as politics are concerned.