Download Gettysburg Address

Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
November 19, 1863
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 battle-field 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 can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -we can not 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.
Comment [Q1]: How many is “four score and
seven? Why did Lincoln open his speech this way?
Comment [Q2]: What famous founding
document is Lincoln referring to? How does the Civil
War fit into this concept?
Comment [Q3]: What great purpose did the Civil
War Serve in Lincoln’s view?
Comment [Q4]: What about the Confederates
who also died at Gettysburg? Do you believe Lincoln
included them in this reference?
Comment [Q5]: Why did Lincoln feel that he and
those who listened to his speech could not
adequately honor what took place at Gettysburg?
Comment [Q6]: Why does Lincoln believe that
speeches are never so important as brave acts?
Comment [Q7]: What “unfinished work” was
Lincoln referring to?
Comment [Q8]: What did Lincoln mean by “last
full measure of devotion”?
Comment [Q9]: What high purpose did Lincoln
feel the Civil War had?
Comment [Q10]: Would the Confederate
President Jefferson Davis have agreed with this
statement?
Answer key:
1. Four score and seven is 87. Eighty-seven years before 1863 was 1776, the
year of our Declaration of Independence. Lincoln uses alliteration to stress
the importance of the founding of our nation.
2. He is referring to our Declaration of Independence. The concept that “all
men are created equal” was at great odds with slavery, one of the major
causes of the Civil War.
3. Southern states began seceding over the matter of slavery and their fear of
the dominant majority in the North. Lincoln saw the Civil War as a test of
whether a republic like the United States could endure when one of its
sections decided to break away.
4. All who died at Gettysburg (even those who wanted to break up the nation)
gave their lives so that the United States might endure as one nation. It was
through the battle deaths on both sides that the Union was preserved.
5. Lincoln saw a higher purpose in the battle of Gettysburg in particular and
the Civil War in general. Those on both sides who gave their lives were the
true “consecrators” of Gettysburg.
6. Words and “speechifying” are long forgotten, but brave deeds and
dedication of those who died live on by virtue of the nobility of the
sacrifice.
7. The unfinished work he refers to is mentioned throughout the remainder of
his speech: a new birth of freedom, that the government “of the people…”
shall not perish.
8. They died for their country.
9. Lincoln saw the Civil War as a test: Can a government like that of the United
States endure, even when one group of its citizens want to break away
from it?
10.The Confederates believed that they had a perfect right to break away from
the Union that they voluntarily joined. Lincoln believed that no government
had a built-in means to dismember itself.