HISTORIC SPEECHES
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Second Inaugural Address
March 4, 1865
FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN:
At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential
office there is less occasion for an extended address than
there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail
of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now,
at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations
have been constantly called forth on every point and phase
of the great contest which still absorbs the attention
and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is
new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon
which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the
public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory
and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future,
no prediction in regard to it is ventured.
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all
thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil
war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the
inaugural address was being delivered from this place,
devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent
agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war-seeking
to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation.
Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make
war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would
accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.
One eighth of the whole
population was colored slaves, not distributed generally
over the Union, but localized in the southern part of
it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful
interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the
cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend
this interest was the object for which the insurgents
would rend the Union even by war, while the Government
claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial
enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the
magnitude or the duration which it has already attained.
Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might
cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease.
Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental
and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the
same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It
may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just
God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat
of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be
not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered.
That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has
His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses;
for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that
man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose
that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in
the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having
continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove,
and that He gives to both North and South this terrible
war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall
we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes
which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty
scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills
that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's
two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be
sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash
shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said
three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness
in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive
on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's
wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle
and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve
and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and
with all nations.
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