Four 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

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
