Read the excerpt from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Four score 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.

What is Lincoln’s purpose in the excerpt?

-to recall the names of famous national leaders
-to suggest the need for a new government
-to emphasize the nation’s beliefs and ideals
-to demand an end to the Civil War