dure. We are met on a great battlefield 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."

FOOTNOTES:

[52] N. and H. vii. 389.

[53] Arnold, _Lincoln_, 328. This writer gives a very vivid description
of the delivery of the speech, derived in part from Governor Dennison,
afterward the postmaster-general, who was present on the occasion.

[54] Mr. Arnold says that in an unconscious and absorbed manner, Mr.
Lincoln "adjusted his spectacles" and read his address.

CHAPTER VIII

RECONSTRUCTION

In his inaugural address President Lincoln said: "The union of these
States is perpetual.... No State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully
get out of the Union; resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally
void." In these words was imbedded a principle which later on he showed
his willingness to pursue to its logical conclusions concerning the
reconstruction of the body politic. If no State, by seceding, had got
itself out of the Union, there was difficulty in maintaining that those
citizens of a seceding State, who had not disqualified themselves by
acts of treason, were not still lawfully entitled to conduct the public
business and to hold the usual elections for national and state
officials, so soon as the removal of hostile force should render it
physically possible for them to do so. Upon the basis of this principle,
the resumption by such citizens of a right w