Abraham Lincoln's 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.
