|
|
| If History Interests You, then This Section of the
Site is For You |
|
|
Back |
Abraham
Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Address
March 4, 1865 (Just 45 days
before assassination) |
Back |
|
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.
1. 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, urgent 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.
2. One-eighth of the whole population were 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."
3. 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. |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
