The Gettysburg Address
President Abraham Lincoln is revered for the eloquence of his words. His Gettysburg Address is considered one of the greatest orations delivered by a political leader.
On the morning of February 12, 2008, actor Sam Waterston was scheduled to narrate Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
The 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.
Sam Waterston
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Sam Waterston is an award-winning actor best known for his portrayal of district attorney Jack McCoy on the hit television series Law & Order. He has also starred in a number of films and was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in The Killing Fields. Waterston is an avid Lincoln enthusiast. He has portrayed the 16th president in the television version of Gore Vidal’s Lincoln, starred in the Lincoln Center production of Abe Lincoln in Illinois and provided the voice of Lincoln for the television series The Civil War. Waterston serves on the Advisory Committee of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. |
Hear Waterston's interpretation of the Gettysburg Address.
Read translations of the Gettysburg Address into all of the world's major languages.
