Marathon and Arbela, Worcester and
Valmy, even our own Bunker Hill and Saratoga and Yorktown, fields of
undying fame, have not for us a significance so vital and so beneficent
as this field of Gettysburg. Around its chief and central interest
gather associations of felicitous significance. Like the House of
Delegates in Williamsburg, where Patrick Henry roused Virginia to
resistance; like Faneuil Hall in Boston, where Samuel Adams lifted New
England to independence; like Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia, where
the Continental Congress assembled, this field is invested with the
undying charm of famous words fitly spoken. While yet the echoes of the
battle might have seemed to linger in the awed and grieving air, stood
the sad and patient and devoted man, whose burden was greater than that
of any man of his generation, and as greatly borne as any solemn
responsibility in human history. Upon this field he spoke the few simple
words which enshrine the significance of the great controversy and which
have become a part of this historic scene, to endure with the memory of
Gettysburg, and to touch the heart and exalt the hope of every American
from the gulf to the lakes and from ocean to ocean, so long as this
valley shall smile with spring and glow with autumn, and day and night
and seed time and harvest shall not fail.
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