林肯《格底斯堡演說》原文，

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 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.

演講內容

八十七年之前，我們的先輩們在這塊大陸之上締造了一個新國家，它在自由之中孕育成長，奉行著人人生來平等的原則。

當前，我們正從事一場偉大的內戰，以考驗這個國家，或者任何一個孕育於自由和奉行上述原則的國家是否能夠長久存在下去。我們今天是在這場戰爭中的一個偉大戰場上集會。烈士們為使這個國家能夠生存下去而獻出了自己的生命。我們來到這裡，在此集會，是要把這個戰場的一部分奉獻給他們作為英靈安息之所。我們這樣做是完全應該而且非常恰當的。

但從更大的意義上來說，我們又不可能奉獻這塊土地，我們不能使它神聖化。曾在這兒戰鬥過的勇士們，不管是犧牲了的還是在世的，已把這塊土地神聖化了，這遠不是我們微薄的力量所能增減的。

全世界將很少注意到，也不會長久記住我們今天在這裡所說的話，但全世界將永遠忘不了勇士們在這裡所完成的功業。

倒不如說，是我們這些還活著的人應在這裡把自己獻身於勇士們已經如此崇高地向前推進但尚未完成的事業。對於我們，在這裡倒是應該把自己奉獻於仍然留在我們面前的偉大任務——從這些光榮的烈士身上吸取更多的獻身精神，來完成他們那已完全徹底為之獻身的事業；以便使我們在這裡下定最大的決心，不讓這些烈士白白犧牲；以便使國家在上帝的福佑下得到自由的新生，並使這一民有、民治、民享的政府永世長存！