Part 1: It doesn't fit well into the pattern of "main point" and "supporting details." It doesn't fit the pattern of paragraphs with topic sentences. It doesn't fit the pattern of introduction, three paragraphs, conclusion. It doesn't need to, because it's so short. I think he is making only one point, expressing ONE SINGLE complex thought. This is the thought: "We must honor our soldiers by winning the war and achieving what they died for: the rebirth of the United States as the unified democracy that was created in 1776." The Civil War has political overtones in the United States today. I'm trying to explain what _I_ think Lincoln's words mean. Other native speakers might not agree with me about everything. "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." -->Our nation was founded 87 years ago on the principle of political equality. (He quotes the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." The Declaration was signed on July 4th 1776, 87 years before the Gettysburg Address of Nov. 19th, 1863). "Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure." -->We don't know if the nation will survive. The war is a test of democracy. If the Union doesn't win, the United States, as created in 1776, will not survive. _Something_ may survive, but it won't be the democracy that was created in 1776. "We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this." -->This is a formal ceremony. This land was a battlefield. We are making it a cemetery. We are declaring it to be sacred ground. (To be continued...)

Note: just as an aside... there are three places in the speech where Lincoln uses the metaphor of childbirth. "Brought forth" is a somewhat old-fashioned phrase that can describe childbirth. "Conceived" refers to the process that culminates in childbirth nine months later (the noun is "conception," conception is prevented by "contraceptives," etc.) And in the last paragraph he refers to a "new birth of freedom."

Part 2: "But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here." -->This is sacred ground because of the sacrifices of the men who died here, fighting for the principle of equality. It is what they did that makes it sacred, not the ceremony we are holding now. What we are doing here today isn't important. "It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. 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 gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom..." -->Here's what's important: finishing the work they began. That is, we must win the war for the Union, and give the nation a fresh start, a rebirth as a democracy in which all people, _including former slaves_, are politically equal. If we don't win, their lives will have been wasted. We can honor them best by winning the war, not by burying them in a nice cemetery. " -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." -->...and if we don't win now, it is the end of democracy itself. (Because we're the only nation ever to be founded as a democracy, and if we don't win, the nation will no longer be democracy that was "conceived in liberty" in 1776).

Yes I mean for each pragraph:) Thank you guys!!XDD

Miss Z, I can't imagine that this question was assigned to you for language learning. Surely this is for another class. Books have been written on this masterpiece.