1863 Gettysburg · Founding Made Plain

1863Gettysburg:
1Four 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.
8Now we are engaged
  in a great civil war,
      testing whether that nation,
          or any nation so conceived
          and so dedicated,
      can long endure.
14We are met
  on a great battle-field of that war.
16We 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.
21It is altogether fitting and proper
  that we should do this.
23But, in a larger sense,
  we can not dedicate—
  we can not consecrate—
  we can not hallow—
      this ground.
28The brave men,
  living and dead,
  who struggled here,
31have consecrated it,
  far above our poor power
      to add or detract.
34The world will little note,
  nor long remember
      what we say here,
  but it can never forget
      what they did here.
39It 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.
45It 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.
Official source · Library of Congress

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