Gettysburg+Address+5


 * The Gettysburg Address **
 * A famous speech given by President Abraham Lincoln on the meaning of the Civil War, in November 1863 at the dedication of a national cemetary on the site of the Battle of Gettysburg.*

On November 19, 1863 150,000 people gathered at Gettysburg. The occasion was to dedicate a cemetary in honor of the Union soldiers who had died there 4 months prior to the event. The geust, giving a 2 hour speech, was the famous speaker Edward Everett of Massachusetts. When it was Lincolns turn to speak he delivered a mere 2 minute speech. It remined the listeners of the North's reason for fighting in the Civil War; to preserve a young country unmatched by any other country in the history in its commitment to the principles of freedom, equality, and slef government. Thus leaving the Republicans pleased, and the democrats with the thought that the speech was silly and flat. // "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought fourth on this continent a new nation, concieved in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition thatall men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great Civil War, testingwhether that nation, or any othe nation so concieved and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a greeat 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 take 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 refinishedwork that they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause, for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion; that died in vain; that the North shall under God have a new birth of freedom, and that Government of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from earth." //
 * __The Gettysburg Address__**

**//Works Cited://** __Lincoln In The Times: The Life Of Abraham Lincoln As Originally Reported In The New York Times__; edited by David Herbert Donald and Harold Holzer http://www.history2u.com/lincoln_gettysburg_sepia.jpg