The statue of Abraham Lincoln inside the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, Nov. 16, 2013. Obama paid tribute to Lincoln's famous words today.

On the 150 th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, President Obama took pen to paper to write his own tribute to Abraham Lincoln's famous words.

"In the evening, when Michelle and the girls have gone to bed, I sometimes walk down the hall to a room Abraham Lincoln used as his office," Obama writes. "It contains an original copy of the Gettysburg Address. … I linger on these few words that have helped define our American experiment: 'a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.'"

The president honored Lincoln's historic Civil War speech in 272 words that he wrote by hand on White House stationery.

Read President Obama's Full Tribute Written in His Own Hand

"At times, social and economic change have strained our union. But Lincoln's words give us confidence that whatever trials await us, this nation and the freedoms we cherish can, and shall, prevail."