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Gettysburg
Address
Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
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 may 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.
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Get your kids interested in our history, this is
a great book, with a fun story. Did you know that
Ben Franklin had a hunch that a kite could act as a
sail if one held it while swimming and another that
ants could communicate with each other? But, as
Newbery Honor Award winner and highly regarded
biographer Jean Fritz points out, "A Big Idea .
. . meant little to Ben Franklin unless he could put
it to everyday use." Capitalizing on reader's
prior knowledge while wetting young appetites with a
hint of what's to come, Fritz presents a
non-fictionalized Franklin. How "lucky" it
was that Franklin's street had a name, states Fritz,
because "people like to know where and when
famous men are born." Fritz's signature humor
and anecdotal style abound, respecting her
audience's intelligence. She writes, "England
was treating America as if it were a country of
apprentices."
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