"Four score and seven years ago"
So began the message
Of a war-weary President
Abraham Lincoln
A message written on the back of an envelope
On a train on the way to
Dedicate a battlefield
Where men from the north and south had died
At Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
"Four score and seven years ago
Our forefathers brought forth on this continent
A new nation
Conceived in liberty
And dedicated to the proposition
That all men are created equal
Now we're 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 the final resting place
For those who here
Gave their lives
That that nation might live
It is all together fitting
And proper thast we should do this
But in a larger sense
We cannot dedicate
We cannot consecrate
We cannot hallow this ground
For the brave men living and dead
Who struggled here
Have consecreated it
Far above our poor power
To add or detract
The world will little notice
Or 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 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
And that this nation
Under God
Shall have a new birth of freedom
And the government
Of the people
By the people
And for the people
Shall not perish from the earth"