castleman address

one score and seven years ago my father brought forth on this continent a new person, conceived in lori, and dedicated to the proposition that all hard-working men are entitled to an occupation.

now i am engaged in a great job quest, testing whether this nation, or any nation, so struggling and yet dedicated, can long endure to withhold employment from me. i am met on a great battle-field of this crusade. i have come to dedicate a portion of my time, as a final endeavor for those who here forfeit their lives for not responding to my cold-call e-mails, that this nation might survive with me pursuing that career which i so desperately seek. it is altogether fitting and proper that i should do this.

but, in a larger sense, i can not dedicate...i can not consecrate...i can not hallow this pursuit. the brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above my poor power to add or detract. the world will little note, nor long remember what i find here, but it can never forget what i searched for here. it is for me the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which needs more employees to accomplish. it is rather for me to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before me—that from these honored dead i take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that i here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new employee—and that capitalism: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.