   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 here on a great battle-field of that war.  We 
have come to dedicate a portion of it 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 can never forget what they did 
here.  It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the 
unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on.  
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 here gave the last full measure 
of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not 
have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of 
freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for 
the people, shall not perish from the earth.