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| Abraham Lincoln |
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 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."
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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