The Murthasburg Address
Six score and four Friedmans ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new vision, conceived in national enervation and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created somewhat equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war of words and prophecies, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long equivocate. We are met on a great rhetorical battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a resting-place for those who here gave their pixels that that nation might withdraw, and, if Providence so desires, diminish. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men and women of Dupont Circle have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract talking points. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.