今天是亚伯拉罕·林肯“The Gettysburg Address” 的日子。1863年的11月19日，亚伯拉罕·林肯总统，在Pennsylvania 的 Gettysbuger 发表了演讲。林肯总统在演讲中，悼念那些阵亡的将士。并在演讲的最后说：这个国家在上帝的统治下，将获得新生的自由——人民的政府，民治，民享，不会从地球上消亡。

这场演讲名垂青史，声震寰宇。被称为史上最精彩的演讲。

因为当时林肯总统写了两份不同的讲稿，并分别抄写与五个不同的人。因此，五稿之间略有出入。

这里就选取其中的一份。

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

八十七年前，我们的先辈们在这个大陆上建立了一个全新的国家，它受孕于自由的理念，并献身于人人生而平等的。