The Gettysburg Address/Abraham Lincoln
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 large 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 to 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 revolve 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, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
87年前，我們的先輩在這個大陸上創建了一個新國家。她孕育于自由之中，奉行一切人生來平等的原則。
目前我們正在進行一場偉大的內戰，以考驗這個國家，或者任何一個孕育于自由和奉行上述原則的國家是否長久存在下去。我們在這場戰爭的一個偉大戰場上聚會。我們來到這裏把這戰場上的一部分奉獻給那些?國家生存而捐軀的人們，作?他們的最後安息之地。我們這樣做是完全適合的、恰當的。
但是從更廣泛的意義上來說，我們不能奉獻，不能聖化，不能神化這片土地。那些曾在這裏戰鬥過的人，活著的和死去的，已經聖化了這片土地，遠非我們的微薄之力所能揚抑。世人極少會注意或長久記得我們今天在這裏所說的話，但是勇士們在這裏做過的事將永遠不會被忘記。倒是我們，活著的人，應該把自己奉獻給留在我們面前的偉大任務：從這些光榮的死者身上我們汲取更多的獻身精神來完成他們精誠所至的事業。我們在這裏下定決心不讓死者白白死去；這個國家，在上帝的保佑下，將獲得自由的新生。這個民有、民治、民享的政府將與世長存。
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