The Daily Gate City

The President's Speech at the Consecration of Gettysburg Cemetery.

Mr. Lincoln having been introduced, said:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers established upon this continent a government subscribed in liberty and dedicated to the fundamental principles that all men are created equal by a good God. [Applause.] Now we are engaged in a great contest—the question whether this nation, any nation, so consecrated, so educated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle field of the war; we are met here to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place of those who have given their lives that the nation might live. It is all right, befitting 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 to or detract. [Great applause.] The dead will little heed. Let us long remember what we have, but not forget what they did here. [Immense applause.] It is for us, rather—the living—to be dedicated here to the unfinished work that they have thus far so nobly carried forward.— ['Good,' and great applause.] It is better for us to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us; for us to renew our devotion to that cause for which they gave the full measure of their devotion. Here let us resolve that what they have done shall not have been done in vain; that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth; that the Government of the people, founded by the people, shall not perish."