<P> In the many generations that have passed since the Address, it has remained among the most famous speeches in American history, and is often taught in classes about history or civics . Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is itself referenced in another of those famed orations, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech . Standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963, King began with a reference, by the style of his opening phrase, to President Lincoln and his enduring words: "Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation . This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice ." </P> <P> Phrases from the Address are often used or referenced in other works . The current Constitution of France states that the principle of the French Republic is "gouvernement du peuple, par le peuple et pour le peuple" ("government of the people, by the people, and for the people"), a literal translation of Lincoln's words . Sun Yat - Sen's "Three Principles of the People" as well as the preamble for the 1947 Constitution of Japan were also inspired from that phrase . The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln has as its ship's motto the phrase "shall not perish". </P> <P> U.S. Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts wrote of the address and its enduring presence in American culture after Lincoln's assassination in April 1865: "That speech, uttered at the field of Gettysburg...and now sanctified by the martyrdom of its author, is a monumental act . In the modesty of his nature he said' the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here .' He was mistaken . The world at once noted what he said, and will never cease to remember it ." </P> <P> U.S. President John F. Kennedy stated in July 1963 about the battle and Lincoln's speech: "Five score years ago the ground on which we here stand shuddered under the clash of arms and was consecrated for all time by the blood of American manhood . Abraham Lincoln, in dedicating this great battlefield, has expressed, in words too eloquent for paraphrase or summary, why this sacrifice was necessary ." Kennedy would meet the same fate as Abraham Lincoln only three days after the Gettysburg Address centennial . </P>

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