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Lincoln's Gettysburg Address / Given November 19, 1863 on the battlefield near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, USA cover

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address / Given November 19, 1863 on the battlefield near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, USA

Chapter 1: Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, given November 19, 1863 on the battlefield near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, USA
By Abraham Lincoln
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About This Book

A brief address delivered at a battlefield dedication in 1863 frames the Civil War as a test of whether a nation founded on liberty and equality can endure. It honors soldiers who sacrificed their lives, argues that their actions have consecrated the ground beyond words, and calls on the living to renew their commitment to the unfinished work of securing national unity and freedom. The speech culminates in a call to resolve that the nation experience a new birth of freedom and that government of, by, and for the people shall not perish.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

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Title: Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

Author: Abraham Lincoln

Release date: November 1, 1973 [eBook #4]
Most recently updated: September 6, 2025

Language: English

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LINCOLN'S GETTYSBURG ADDRESS ***


Lincoln's Gettysburg Address,
given November 19, 1863
on the battlefield near
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, USA


Four score 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 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 this 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 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 this earth.