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 died

here that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety, do. 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 hallowed it far above our poor power to add

or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, while it can

never forget what they did here. It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to

the great task remaining before us. That from these honored dead we take increased devotion

to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here

highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. That the nation 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.