Another event, occurring in this autumn of 1863, was noteworthy because through it the literature of our tongue received one of its most distinguished acquisitions. On November 19 the national military cemetery at Gettysburg was to be consecrated; Edward Everett was to deliver the oration, and the President was of course invited as a guest. Mr. Arnold says that it was actually while Mr. Lincoln was "in the cars on his way from the White House to the battlefield" that he was told that he also would be expected to say something on the occasion; that thereupon he jotted down in pencil the brief address which he delivered a few hours later.[53] But that the composition was quite so extemporaneous seems doubtful, for Messrs. Nicolay and Hay transcribe the note of invitation, written to the President on November 2 by the master of the ceremonies, and in it occurs this sentence: "It is the desire that, after the oration, you, as Chief Executive of the Nation, formally set apart these grounds to their sacred use, by a few appropriate remarks." Probably, therefore, some forethought went to the preparation of this beautiful and famous "Gettysburg speech." When Mr. Everett sat down, the President arose and spoke as follows:[54]-- "Fourscore 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 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." FOOTNOTES: [52] N. and H. vii. 389. [53] Arnold, _Lincoln_, 328. This writer gives a very vivid description of the delivery of the speech, derived in part from Governor Dennison, afterward the postmaster-general, who was present on the occasion.