THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS:
"Fourscore 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 battlefield 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 cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate,
we cannot 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."
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Prepared by Gerald Murphy (The Cleveland Free-Net - aa300) Distributed by the Cybercasting
Services Division of the National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN).
Permission is hereby granted to download, reprint, and/or otherwise redistribute this
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