by San Francisco. But separate our common country into two nations as
designed by the present rebellion, and every man of this great interior
region is thereby cut off from some one or more of these outlets-not,
perhaps, by a physical barrier, but by embarrassing and onerous trade
regulations.

"And this is true wherever a dividing or boundary line may be fixed.
Place it between the now free and slave country, or place it south of
Kentucky or north of Ohio, and still the truth remains that none south
of it can trade to any port or place north of it, and none north of it
can trade to any port or place south of it, except upon terms dictated
by a government foreign to them. These outlets east, west, and south,
are indispensable to the well-being of the people inhabiting and to
inhabit, this vast interior region. Which of the three may be the best
is no proper question. All are better than either; and all of right
belong to that people and to their Successors forever. True to
themselves, they will not ask where a line of separation shall be, but
will vow rather that there shall be no such line. Nor are the marginal
regions less interested in these communications to and through them to
the great outside world. They, too, and each of them, must have access
to this Egypt of the West without paying toll at the crossing of any
national boundary.

"Our national strife springs not from our permanent part, not from the
land we inhabit, not from our national homestead. There is no possible
severing of this but would multiply, and not mitigate, evils among
us. In all its adaptations and aptitudes it demands union and abhors
separation. In fact, it would ere long, force reunion, however much of
blood and treasure the separation might have cost."(30)

A third time he made a great literary stroke, gave utterance, in yet
another form, to his faith that the national idea was the one constant
issue for which he had asked his countrymen, and would continue to ask
them, to die. It was at Gettysburg, November 19, 1863, in consecration
of a military burying-ground, that he delivered, perhaps, his greatest
utterance:

"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. I