we do
not know his reasons. Few statesmen, perhaps, have so often stood
waiting and refrained themselves from a firm will and not from the want
of it, and for the sake of the rare moment of action.

The passing of the crisis in the war was fittingly commemorated by a
number of State Governors who combined to institute a National Cemetery
upon the field of Gettysburg. It was dedicated on November 19, 1863.
The speech of the occasion was delivered by Edward Everett, the
accomplished man once already mentioned as the orator of highest repute
in his day. The President was bidden then to say a few words at the
close. The oration with which for two hours Everett delighted his vast
audience charms no longer, though it is full of graceful sentiment and
contains a very reasonable survey of the rights and wrongs involved in
the war, and of its progress till then. The few words of Abraham Lincoln
were such as perhaps sank deep, but left his audience unaware that a
classic had been spoken which would endure with the English language.
The most literary man present was also Lincoln's greatest admirer, young
John Hay. To him it seemed that Mr. Everett spoke perfectly, and "the
old man" gracefully for him. These were the few words: "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
cannot 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 to 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 honoured dead we take increased
devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of
dev