President Abraham Lincoln, who was not feeling well (and later discovered to have been in the prodromal period of a mild case of smallpox), then delivered some "dedicatory remarks" from handwritten notes that he'd drafted only that morning.  The ten-sentence Gettysburg Address was met with a thunderous ovation at the time, but received mixed reviews in the press immediately following.  Nevertheless, Lincoln's carefully crafted address, secondary to other presentations that day, came to be regarded so highly that Everett later wrote Lincoln, "I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes."

No copies were circulated to the media, so press transcriptions vary (at least three different variants were in general circulation), none known to match either the Nicolay draft or the Hay draft (the two Lincoln autographs from the date of the ceremony).  Of the five versions known to exist, the Bliss copy is generally regarded as the official version of the speech, though the Everett draft/copy most closely matches the press transcriptions.

Address delivered at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg.

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 here 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.

Our work isn't yet done in this regard, as honest patriots find themselves again engaged in a great struggle testing whether our nation will continue to endure as "a more perfect union," or whether a "nation so conceived and so dedicated" will cease to endure in another generation or so.