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If History Interests You, then This Section of the
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Lincoln's
Gettysburg Address
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863 |
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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 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. |
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