Thursday, February 12, 2009

Lincoln Turns 200

In honor of Lincoln's 200th birthday, I will now attempt to type from memory the Gettysburg Address:

Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. We are now 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 its ground as a final resting place for those who [. . .] the cause of liberty. 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 these grounds. The brave men, living and dead, who fought here have already consecrated it far beyond our small power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it cannot forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated to the task for which these honored dead gave the last full measure of devotion. [. . .] new birth of freedom, and government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

That's all I got.

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