"Liberty must
at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker.
But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the
expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their
blood."
John Adams, 1765
"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."
Abraham Lincoln, 19 November 1863
