Read the excerpt from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. What does he mean when he says, “we cannotdedicate—wecannotconsecrate—w ecannot hallow, this ground”? 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.

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 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.

But, in a larger sense, we cannotdedicate—wecannotconsecrate—w ecannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.

He is waiting for a religious leader to consecrate the ground properly.
He thinks that the soldiers themselves consecrated the ground with their sacrifice.
He feels that the ground cannot be dedicated until the war is over.
He is convinced that the soldiers died in vain.