271 words

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four score 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 all together 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

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