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 battlefield 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
cannot consecrate-we cannot 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 rather for us to be here
dedicated to the great task remaining before us-
that from these honored dead we take increased
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.

       
 It is the eternal struggle between these two principles-right
and wrong - throughout the world. They are the
two principles that have stood face to face from the
beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle
The one is the common right of humanity and
the other the divine right of kings. It is the same
principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is
the same spirit that says, "You work and toil and
earn bread, and I'll eat it." [applause] No matter in
what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a
king who seeks to bestride the people of his own
nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from
one race of Men as an apology for enslaving another
race, it is the same tyrannical principle. . . .

When any church will inscribe over its altars, as its sole
qualification for memberships the Savior's condensed
statement of the substance of both law and gospel,
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy
neighbor as thyself", that church will I join with all my
heart and all my soul.

The greed of the gold possessed us
Pity and love were forgot
Covetous visions obsessed us
brother with brother fought
Partner with partner wrangled
each one claiming his due
Wrangled and halved their outfits
Sawing their boats in two

Exerpt:  The Trail of 98     Robert Service