Answer
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Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation,
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conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal
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Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation,
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or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.
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We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field,
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as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.
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It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
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But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground.
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The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.
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The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
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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.
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It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—
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that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause
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for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—
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that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—
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that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—
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and that government of the people, by the people, for the people,
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shall not perish from the earth.
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