A portion of the battle-field of Gettysburg was set apart as a
resting-place for the heroes who fell on that bloody ground. In November
of that year the ceremony of consecration took place. Edward Everett,
the orator and the scholar, delivered the oration; it was a polished
specimen of his consummate skill. After him rose President
Lincoln,--"simple, rude, his care-worn face now lighted and glowing with
intense feeling." He simply read the touching speech which is already
placed among the classics of our language:--
"Fourscore 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 battle-field of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of
it as the final resting-place of 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 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.
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