"You were right," said Lincoln, "and I
was wrong."
On the 19th of November, 1863, comes the Gettysburg address, so eloquent
in its simplicity. It is probable that no speaker in recorded history
ever succeeded in putting into so few words so much feeling, such
suggestive thought, and such high idealism. The speech is one that
children can understand and that the greatest minds must admire.
[Illustration:
FACSIMILE OF GETTYSBURG ADDRESS.
Address delivered at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg.
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 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 their nation might live. It is
altogether fitting and proper that we should 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.
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