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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 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 this 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 this
earth.
In Lincoln's own handwriting:
Copies of original Gettysburg Address:
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