1863年11月19日
― 英語原文、(この手書き原文といわれるものには、5種類の、少しずつ違う版があるといわれている) ―
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.
Abraham Lincoln.
November 19, 1863.
("The Gettysburg Gospel", Appendix B, by Gabor Boritt, Simon and Schuster, 2006. Baltimore Sanitary Fair, Second Version, or Bliss Copy)
このごく短い演説は、後に名演説として称えられた。リンカーン大統領がこの演説を行った時はまだ南北戦争の最中で、南部諸州が連邦脱退を叫び火蓋を切った国内戦争だったが、リンカーン大統領は連邦分裂は許されないと受けて立った戦いだ。そんな背景でこの演説を吟味すれば、独立戦争を経て連邦国家を樹立した先人の努力から演説の趣意を言い起こし、その分裂の危機を訴え、分裂を阻止すべく命を懸けて戦った勇者を称え、我々こそがその大義を引継ぎ、先人の理想とした国家を実現せねばならないと訴えたのだ。
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