consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living
and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our
power to add or to detract. The world will very 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 they have thus far so nobly carried on. 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 here gave the last full
measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead
shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall, under God,
have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people,
by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

--ABRAHAM LINCOLN.


_A PLEA FOR CUBA_

[This deliberative oration was delivered by Senator Thurston in
the United States Senate on March 24, 1898. It is recorded in
full in the _Congressional Record_ of that date. Mrs. Thurston
died in Cuba. As a dying request she urged her husband, who was
investigating affairs in the island, to do his utmost to induce
the United States to intervene--hence this oration.]


Mr. President, I am here by command of silent lips to speak once