Address By President Lincoln
At The Dedication Of
The Gettysburg National Cemetery
November 19, 1863

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 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 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.