The Gettysburg Address, was delivered by Abraham Lincoln on November 19, 1863, at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He presented it during the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery, in honor of the more than 7,000 who died in the Civil War's most costliest battle, the Battle of Gettysburg, earlier that year.

This brief address was followed by Edward Everett, one the most renowned orators of the time, was the keynote speaker at the event and gave a two hour speech. Ironically, the press glorified Everett's remarks and paid little attention to the words of Lincoln. However, Everett was so impressed with the simple and heartfelt eloquence of Lincoln's address, that he wrote the following note to him on the day after the dedication:

"I wish that I could flatter myself that I had come as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes."

Today the Gettysburg Address is universally recognized as one of the finest speeches in the English language and one of the most moving expressions of the American spirit ever spoken.

The text follows.

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on 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 have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for 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 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 the earth."

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Last Modified: July, 2005