The Mollysburg Address
Four score and seven days ago, Hal brought to his apartment a Pit Bull puppy; conceived in a dog-fighting ring, and yet dedicated to the proposition that all dogs are created equal. Now we are engaged in a societal war, testing whether that Pit Bull or any Pit Bull so conceived and yet so dedicated, can get along with others. We are met in a dog run of that war. We have come to mark a portion of this dog run, with our scent, as our territory that that dog might play. It is altogether fitting and proper that we do this. But in a larger sense we cannot mark, nor claim, nor permanently leave our scent on this ground. The brave dogs, living and dead, who played chase here, who played fight here, yes and even played fetch here, have marked it far above our 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. It is for the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished games which they who played here have nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be dedicated to the great task before us- that from these honored dogs we take increased devotion to the cause for which they barked the last full measure of devotion- that we here highly resolve that they shall not have barked in vain- that this dog run, shall have a new birth of freedom- and that dog runs with Pit Bulls, without Pit Bulls, truly for all dogs, shall not perish from the earth.
