Abraham Lincoln: Two Speeches

Ｇｅｔｔｙｓｂｕｒｇ　　Ａｄｄｒｅｓｓ        President Abraham Lincoln

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.

Ｓｅｃｏｎｄ　Ｉｎａｕｇｕｒａｌ　Ａｄｄｒｅｓｓ   President Abraham Lincoln

With malice toward none;

with charity for all;

with firmness in the right,

as God gives us to see the right,

let us strive on

to finish the work we are in;

to bind up the nation's wounds;

to care for him who shall have borne the battle,

and for his widow,

and his orphan—

to do all which may achieve

and cherish

a just and

a lasting

peace among ourselves,

and with all nations.