GETTYSBURG ADDRESS, delivered by President Lincoln at the dedication of the Na tional Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pa., 15 Nov. 1863. °Of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) as an orator, the last of the great anti-slavery group, it is unnecessary to speak at length. The Lincoln-Douglas debates, the Cooper Institute speech, the Gettysburg oration, and the Second Inaugural need no comment beyond the re minder that the general consensus of mankind is that neither England nor America has fur nished more perfect English or purer litera ture than are contained in the two last-named orations." Consult Rines, I., The United States' (Vol. IX, p. 279, New York 1916). The Gettysburg oration reads as follows: *Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the propo sition 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 alto
gether 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 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 dedi cated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly ad vanced. 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 re solve 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, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth."