葛底斯堡(10) 完結篇

大頭

演講

半年後，葛底斯堡舉行的聯邦士兵公墓落成典禮上，林肯發表了最偉大的演講。有什麼能比這個更好地來結束這個系列尼？

The Gettysburg Address

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
November 19, 1863

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 battle-field 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 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. 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 honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of 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.

葛底斯堡演說

亞伯拉罕•林肯，1963年11月19日

87年前，我們的先輩們在這個大陸上創立了一個新國家，它孕育於自由之中，奉行一切
人生來平等的原則。現在我們正從事一場偉大的內戰，以考驗這個國家，或者任何一個
孕育於自由和奉行上述原則的國家是否能夠長久存在下去。我們在這場戰爭中的一個偉
大戰場上集會。烈士們為使這個國家能夠生存下去而獻出了自己的生命，我們來到這
里，是要把這個戰場的一部分奉獻給他們作為最後安息之所。我們這樣做是完全應該而
且是非常恰當的。

但是，從更廣泛的意義上來說，這塊土地我們不能夠奉獻，不能夠聖化，不能夠神化。
那些曾在這裡戰鬥過的勇士們，活着的和去世的，已經把這塊土地聖化了，這遠不是我
們微薄的力量所能增減的。我們今天在這裡所說的話，全世界不大會注意，也不會長久
地記住，但勇士們在這裡所做過的事，全世界卻永遠不會忘記。毋寧說，倒是我們這些
還活着的人，應該在這裡把自己奉獻於勇士們已經如此崇高地向前推進但尚未完成的事
業。倒是我們應該在這裡把自己奉獻於仍然留在我們面前的偉大任務——我們要從這些
光榮的死者身上汲取更多的獻身精神，來完成他們已經完全徹底為之獻身的事業；我們
要在這裡下定最大的決心，不讓這些死者白白犧牲；我們要使國家在上帝福佑下得到自
由的新生，要使這個民有、民治、民享的政府永世長存。