Almanak Ólafs S. Thorgeirssonar - 01.01.1939, Blaðsíða 22

22 ÓLAFUR S. THORGEIRSSON:
vígsluathöfn sú fram þann 19. nóvember 1863, að
viðstöddum fádæma fjölda manns, sem drifið
hafði þangað úr öllum áttum. Aðal ræðumaður við
þá hátíðlegu athöfn var Edward Everett, afburða
mælskumaður og glæsimenni. Talaði hann þar í
tvær klukkustundir og hreif alla með sinni miklu
mælsku. Að þeirri ræðu lokinni, var Lincoln boðið
að segja nokkur orð, og flutti hann þá þessa stuttu
ræðu sem hér fylgir:
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers
brought forth on this continent a new nation, con-
ceived 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 battlefield of that
war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that
field as a final resting place for those who gave
their lives that that nation might live. It is al-
together fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we can-
not consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The
brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have
consecrated it far above our poor power to add or to
detract. The world will little note nor long remem-
ber 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 honoured
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.”