It
is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work that they have thus far so nobly carried on. 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 the cause for which they here
gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that
the dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall, under God,
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."
There have been but four instances in history in which great deeds have
been celebrated in words as immortal as themselves: the epitaph upon the
dead Spartan band at Thermopylae; the words of Demosthenes on those who
perished at Marathon; the speech of Webster in memory of those who laid
down their lives at Bunker Hill; and these words of Lincoln on the hill
at Gettysburg. As he closed, and while his listeners were still sobbing,
he grasped the hand of Mr. Everett, and said. "I congratulate you on
your success."--"Ah," replied the orator, gracefully, "Mr. President,
how gladly would I exchange all my hundred pages to have been the author
of your twenty lines!"
I forbear to dwell longer on the events of the war. The tide had turned,
and the end was already foreseen.
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