Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon 

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 this 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 this earth.