"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new
nation, conceived in The Rule of Law.
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,
