Lincoln begins by stating that 87 years ago, their forefathers created a new nation based on the belief in liberty and that all men are created equal. Now, they are engaged in a civil war that is testing whether that nation or any similar to it can last. He states that they are now met on a great battlefield, where it is fitting and proper that they will dedicate a final resting place for those who gave their lives so that the nation might live. However, he says, they cannot make the ground sacred as much as the men who fought and died on it did. History will not remember what was said there, but it will remember what happened there. Lincoln then states that it is the duty of the living that they finish the work which those who fought had so nobly began, that they give more devotion to the cause which those who died gave the last full measure of devotion; which is to preserve the nation "of the people, by the people, for the people".
(Note- my summary does not do this speech justice.)
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