Stevenson Name___________________
APUSH Gettysburg Address-
1. What does “Four score and seven years ago” mean?
Four score and seven years ago is refe
ing to 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was signed. Lincoln starts with this to go back to a major time when the nation started and to get the audience’s attention
2. What is Lincoln refe
ing to in this first sentence?
He is refe
ing to the founding father in 1776 when they made the declaration of independence and form our country.
3. What is the purpose of the address that Lincoln is giving?
The purpose of the address was to honor the soldiers who died defending their cause.
4. Why does Lincoln say that “we cannot dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground?” Cite evidence from the text in your response.
5. What then can we do? What does Lincoln say is the task “for us the living?” Why?
6. What was “that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion?” Do you think all of the soldiers who died fighting at Gettysburg were fighting for the same cause? Why or why not?
The northern soldiers did not all fight for the same cause, because they all had different perceptions of the southern cause. The southern cause was generally perceived as the wrong cause in general. That is why there are only northern soldiers in the cemetery.
7. In the last clause, what is meant by government “of the people, by the people, for the people”?
8. How does Lincoln understand the relationship between equality and freedom in America? Cite evidence from the text to support your answer.
Gettysburg Address
Four score and seven years ago our fathers
ought 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
ave 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.