The document summarizes Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address given at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery. It discusses how the event was originally intended to dedicate a portion of the Gettysburg battlefield but Lincoln used it as an opportunity to consecrate the ground and refocus the nation on its core principles of liberty, equality, and democratic government for and by the people in order to give the deaths in the Civil War meaning and ensure such a war never happens again.