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Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon 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 here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it 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 can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. 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 here gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
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Dig this, my men. A few decades back, some hep, cool creative guys hath invented a sovereign country somewhere right around here that was devoted to increasing human equality. It's true, man; I saw, ah, documentation on the teevee. I call that radical! Too hot, hot, hot!
But now, there's definitely a bad vibe. Wretched indignation advanced to total hatred, bitter warfare, and terrible attrition. Thousands of hale men, both Northern-trained Federal and hotheaded, pro-apartheid Confederate, every one frightened, fighting with revolvers and rifles to decide whether survival of that great, progressive doctrine of reform and human tolerance is necessary -- or a total menace. We have gathered at the, ah, scene tonight to give high props to a thin, fantastic posse that hitherto laid it all ten-tenths down for the cause. That be word. Word is bond.
Nay, do listen to this oath, congregation: Whatever grateful oration we, ah, bother to deliver ain't near enough. Not near appropriate or worthwhile. Here, a dreaded Death flowered beneath the feet of, and collected, honored men. The, ah, righteous thugs and heroic hos that we celebrate achieved the whole deal; all we can do is riff charming, insignificant stuff that people will never recall. So we all gotta keep on keeping on, in order to see to it that things evolve better for our, ah, descendants so the worthwhile peeps rule twenty-four/seven. Be real. Yahoo. Whatever.
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