The Gettysburg Address  PRO

THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS:

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...