FourTwo score and seven years agoourmy father(s?) brought forth on this continent a newnationMessiah, conceived inLibertyKenya, or Hawaii, or somewhere, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, unless they’re rich or successful. And where they are not equal it is the job of the Government to make them equal.Now we are engaged in a great
civil wardepression. Not The Great Depression, but the next closest thing. And I plan on testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated to capitalism and personal freedom, can long endure. We are met on a greatbattle-field of that warbig open area in front of the Capitol building.WeMany of you have come to dedicatea portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.your lives to The One. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—
this groundMe, anymore than you have already done. The brave men, living and dead,and women of the press who struggledhereto get me elected, have consecrated it, far aboveouryour poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what wesaydo here over the next four years, but it can never forget whatthey didI say here, for I am The One. It is for us thelivingGovernment, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work of total Government control whichthey who fought here have thus far so noblyin years past we could only partially advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—thatfrom these honored deadwe take increased devotion to that cause for whichthey gave the last full measure of devotionyou have elected Me—that we here highly resolve thatthesedead ideas and ideals shall not have died in vain—that this nation,under God, shall have a new birth of freedom–Where my wife, for the first time in her life, can be proud to be an American—and that government of thepeopleGovernment, by thepeopleelected who know better, for thepeoplecontrol of all power, shall not perish from the earth.
H/T: Bright and Early
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