as soon as may be
consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace,
harmony, tranquillity, and union.

_Address at the Dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg.
November 19, 1863_

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon 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 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 honoured 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, and
for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

_From the Annual Message to Congress. December 8, 1863_

... When Congress assembled a year ago, the war had already lasted
nearly twenty months, and there had been many conflicts on both land and
sea, with varying results. The rebellion had been pressed back into
reduced limits; yet the tone of public feeling and opinion at home and
abroad was not satisfactory. With other signs, the popular elections
then just past indicated uneasiness among ourselves; while, amid much
that was cold and menacing, the kindest words coming from Europe were
uttered in accents of pity that we were too blind to surrender a
hopeless cause. Our commerce was suffering greatly from a few vessels
built upon and furnished from foreign shores, and we were threatened
with such additions from th