The Gettysburg Address

In my wallet I keep a copy of the Gettysburg Address, delivered by President Abraham Lincoln on Nov. 19, 1863, in the midst of the American Civil War, several months after the Battle of Gettysburg. That battle and the various campaigns aroung Gettysburg, Pa., was the bloodiest time of the war, and the North's victory there signaled the turning point in the war.

I post it here before the jump in the hopes that you will read it. The legacy of that battle, and these humble words uttered there, are a very real part of why Americans are celebrating this weekend. It is quite moving.

"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."

Comments

[Eric Rex]

Always great to see 19th century quoted in a good way

[chris]

He would be a liberal democrat if alive today. Freeing the slaves??!! As radical as gay marriage.