DEDICATION ADDRESS

GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

By Abraham Lincoln, Statesman and President of the United States. B. 1809, Kentucky; d. 1865, Washington, D. C.

The Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 13, 1863, between the Union forces under General Meade and the Confederate forces under General Lee.

November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the cemetery in which those killed in this battle were buried, President Lincoln delivered this memorable address.

This brief address has been pronounced the greatest oration given in America. For clearness, brevity, and strength, it has never been equaled. Students in reading this selection seldom get into the spirit of the occasion. The movement is very slow, the inflection and emphasis very pronounced. The first paragraph is predominatingly intellectual; the second, emotional; the third, volitional. Emphasize the many contrasted words and phrases. In the first paragraph note especially such words as: new nation, all, equal, that nation, any nation, so conceived, so dedicated. In the second: that nation, live, fitting, proper, cannot, our, we say, they do. In the third: us, unfinished work, new birth of freedom, of the people, by the people, for the people, not perish.

1. Fourscore 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.

2. We are met on a battlefield 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 cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground; the brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far beyond 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.

3. 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.

INAUGURAL ADDRESS

By Woodrow Wilson, Author, Statesman, and President of the United States. B. 1856, Virginia.

This extract is about one-half of his inaugural address delivered at Washington, D. C., March 4, 1913. It had been 20 years since a Democratic president had taken the oath of this high office. This address is remarkable for its high literary merit as well as its sound principles of government.

1. There has been a great change of government. It began two years ago, when the House of Representatives became Democratic by a decisive majority. It has now been completed. The Senate about to assemble will also be Democratic. The offices of President and Vice-President have been put into the hands of Democrats. What does the change mean? That is the question that is uppermost in our minds to-day. That is the question I am going to try to answer, in order, if I may, to interpret the occasion.

2. We see in many things that life is very great. It is incomparably great in its material aspects, in its body of wealth, in the diversity and sweep of its energy, in the industries which have been conceived and built up by the genius of individual men and the limitless enterprise of groups of men. It is great also, very great, in its moral force. Nowhere else in the world have noble men and women exhibited in more striking forms the beauty and the energy of sympathy and helpfulness and counsel in their efforts to rectify wrong, alleviate suffering, and set the weak in the way of strength and hope. We have built up, moreover, a great system of government, which has stood through a long age as in many respects a model for those who seek to set