LINCOLN'S MOST FAMOUS SPEECH

Bush Advocate, Volume XXI, Issue 298, 21 June 1909, Page 6

LINCOLN'S MOST FAMOUS SPEECH

"I suppose I shall be expected. to say something' this afternoon; lend me a pencil > and a bit of paper," said President Lincobi to a fellow passsenger in an excursion train on November' 19, 1863. The train was taking a. crowd of patriotic Americans out to witness the dedication of the national monument to those who fell at the battle of "Gettysburg in the Civil War, and the speech that Lincoln jotted down was destined to become so well-known that words and sentences of it hare passed into the minds of educated men everywhere. It was a short "speech. It was a quiet speech, .so quiet that coming after a windy and highly-decorated harangue by an orator of the day it made little impression on those" who heard it. But when it <was read over America and Europe people began to feel that this deliverance was made for all time. It has been much reprinted in America lately, and. we give it in full : — "Fourscore and seven years ago our, fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the pro^ position that all men are created equal. , Now. we are engaged in a great civil war,, testing wWilier -Hint nation, or aii5 r nation, so conceived and so dedicated, 'can long endure. ' We are met on a- great' battlefield of that war. We have come to dedi- ! cate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for thoso 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 jve' say here,- lmt it can never; forget what they did here. It is for v's the living, rather, to be dedicated Mere tothe unfinished work'* which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be dedicated to the great task remaiuing 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 an vain — that this nation 1 , under •God, shall have a new birtli of freedom, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth." .