 |
|
 |
| | Welcome Patriots! | |
|
 The Gettysburg Address
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania November 19, 1863
On June 1, 1865, Senator
Charles Sumner commented on what is now considered the most famous
speech by President Abraham Lincoln. In his eulogy on the slain
president, he called it a "monumental act." He said Lincoln was
mistaken that "the world will little note, nor long remember what we
say here." Rather, the Bostonian remarked, "The world noted at once
what he said, and will never cease to remember it. The battle itself
was less important than the speech."
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. - Abraham Lincoln
|
|
|
 |
Become a Patriot
