Gettysburg Address

When I was little, all our cousins would travel to our house in southern California to celebrate the Nation's birthday.  My mom made large posters that contained the words of historical patriotic speeches (e.g. Gettysburg Address, Declaration of Indepence, Preamble to the Constitution, Patrick Henry) and posted them around the house in the morning.  Then we had all day to memorize as many as we could for recital later on.  That night we would have a large shrimp boil and recite the speeches we had memorized.  My mom had various prizes for us based on the number we knew, 1 - Candy Bar, 2- King Size Candy Bar, 3 - Gift Card to fast food, 4 - One grab in the money jar (with quarters, dimes, and nickels), 5 or more - two grabs in the money jar.  The prizes varied year by year, but the money grab was always the big one we looked forward to.

So do you have any speeches memorized?  Do you know anything about the Gettysburg Address?  On this day of celebration, we should all take some time to remember how our nation was founded.  I think we lose sight of that more and more as the years go on.

Here is one for you to memorize.  I think you'll be suprised that most of these things aren't very long.

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."