The Gettysburg Address is a speech by Abraham Lincoln delivered exactly 150 years ago from this day.  It’s one of the most well-known American speeches.  It was delivered during the Civil War, 4 1/2 months after the Union Army beat the Confederacy in the Battle of Gettysburg.  It was given during the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg.  The speech is so perfectly written and concise it was recited in just over 2 minutes.

Here’s a photo that shows Lincoln right before he delivered the Gettysburg Address.  He’s in the center of the photo (with no hat on).  Below the photo you can read the Gettysburg Address and hear a recording of it.

Recording of the Gettysburg Address

Gettysburg Address

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

Speech recited by Winston Tharp.

You can read all five known copies of The Gettysburg Address here.  They’re all slightly different but were all penned by Lincoln.

Listen to more recitations of the Gettysburg Address here, including by Presidents Obama, Bush, Clinton and Carter, some well-known people and many "ordinary" people around the U.S.

While you’re at it, why not recite it yourself!  You can submit your video to the same project here.

Mama Lisa