What is the meaning of these words from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address?

The people were essential to freedom and government.

The war would be over soon without many more casualties.

Democracy and the United States would last.

The nation would soon have freedom and be governed by the people.

The meaning of the words from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is that democracy and the United States would last, as he said: "that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this Nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom" - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth".

In November 1863, President Abraham Lincoln was invited to deliver remarks, which later became known as the Gettysburg Address, at the official dedication ceremony for the National Cemetery of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, on the site of one of the bloodiest and most decisive battles of the Civil War. Though he was not the featured orator that day, Lincoln's 273-word address would be remembered as one of the most important speeches in American history. In it, he invoked the principles of human equality contained in the Declaration of Independence and connected the sacrifices of the Civil War with the desire for "a new birth of freedom," as well as the all-important preservation of the Union created in 1776 and its ideal of self-government.