Laudator Temporis Acti

Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address (tr. James A. Kleist, S.J.):

Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon 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.

Annus iam octavus et octogesimus est quum maiores nostri novam in hac orbis terra rem publicam pepererunt, quam libertatis in condicione conceptam rationi illi dedicarunt qua omnes homines natura aequales esse censemus. Nunc vero magno suscepto bello civili nos experimur, haecne res publica vel alia, eodem modo concepta eodem dedicata, diu possit permanere.

We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting place of those who have given their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

Eo in bello acerrime pugnatum est in hoc ipso campo, quo nos convenimus; convenimus autem huc, ut in planitiei parte aliqua tranquillum illis pararemus portum, qui, ut viveret haec res publica, vitam hoc loco profuderunt; quod nos facere et aequum est et iustum.

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 power to add or to detract. The world will very little note nor long remember what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here:

Verum hunc locum, si altius rem spectaverimus, nec inaugurare nec dedicare nec consecrare nos possumus; quem illi ipsi viri fortissimi, qui hic dimicarunt, sive mortui sunt sive superstites, tanta consecrarunt sanctitate, ut nos nec addere quicquam nec demere possimus; nos enim quod hic dicimus, neque multum attendet posteritas neque diu recordabitur: illi quod hic gesserunt, nulla unquam obscurabit oblivio.

It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work they have thus far so nobly carried on. 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 here gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Quo magis nostrum, qui vivimus, est ei nos operi perficiendo tradere totos, quod illi tam praeclare propagarunt; nostrum, inquam, est huic tanto muneri, quod reliquum videmus, fungendo nos dedere, ut ab his, quos honoramus mortuos, maiore discamus pietate eam amplecti causam, qua in defendenda illi hic morientes pietatem praestiterunt summam; ut magno id animo statuamus, ne mortem illi frustra oppetiverint; ut beneficio Dei haec natio libertate reviviscat; ut denique res publica popularis, quae et a populo et pro populo administretur, ex orbe terrae ne tollatur.