The Gettysburg Address is a speech made by Abraham Lincoln at the dedication ceremony of the Soldiers National Cemetery in Gettysburg Pennsylvania.
The cemetery is located on the site of the Battle of Gettysburg, one of the most bloody battles of the American Civil war. The battle fought from 1st to 3rd July 1863 was won by the Unionists and was a turning point in the war. However, the cost in human life was great, the three days fighting saw the deaths of more than 7,500 soldiers.
Although the soldiers were buried in shallow graves on the battlefield the residents of Gettysburg wanted to provide a proper cemetery for the Unionist soldiers killed in the battle. The cemetery was funded by the states and was dedicated on November 19th. During the ceremony Abraham Lincoln delivered his now famous Gettysburg Address.
‘Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on 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 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 ‘
The speech, lasting just over two minutes, was received with little enthusiasm. However, it is now recognised as being one of the greatest speeches in American history.
