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 the 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.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 31: By Abraham Lincoln, at the dedication of the National
Cemetery, 1863.]

ODE TO THE CONFEDERATE DEAD[32]

Sleep sweetly in your humble graves,
Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause;
Though yet no marble column craves
The pilgrim here to pause.

In seeds of laurel in the earth
The blossom of your fame is blown,
And somewhere, waiting for its birth,
The shaft is in the stone.

Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years
Which keep in trust your storied tombs,
Behold! Your sisters bring their tears
And these memorial blooms.

Small tribute! but your shades will smile
More proudly on these wreathes to-day,
Than when some cannon-molded pile
Shall overlook this bay.

Stoop, angels, hither from the skies!
There is no holier spot of ground
Than where defeated valor lies,
By mourning beauty crowned.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 32: By Henry Timrod, an American poet (1829-1867).]

THE CHARIOT RACE[33]