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Second Inaugural Address
by Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address
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 would 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 anxious-
ly 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 were colored slaves, not distributed general-
ly 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
invoked 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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