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Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address
| 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, 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. |
| 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. |
Back
to Abraham Lincoln
Executive Oath of Office
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of
President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and
defend the Constitution of the United States."
United States Constitution, Article II,
Section 1, Clause 8
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Monroe, 6John Quincy Adams, 7Andrew Jackson, 8Martin
Van Buren,9William H Harrison,10John Tyler,11James K
Polk, 12Zachary Taylor, 13Millard Fillmore,14Franklin
Pierce,15James Buchanan,16Abraham Lincoln, 17Andrew
Johnson, 18Ulysses S Grant,19Rutherford B Hayes, 20James A Garfield, 21Chester
A. Arthur, 22Grover
Cleveland,23Benjamin Harrison, 24Grover Cleveland, 25William
McKinley,26Theodore Roosevelt, 27William H. Taft,28Woodrow Wilson, 29Warren
G. Harding,30Calvin Coolidge,31Herbert Hoover,32Franklin
D Roosevelt,33Harry S.
Truman, 34Dwight D Eisenhower,35John F Kennedy, 36Lyndon
B Johnson, 37RichardN. Nixon, 38Gerald R Ford, 39James E
Carter,40Ronald
W. Reagan, 41George
HerbertW. Bush, 42Bill Clinton,
43George Walker Bush 44
Barack H. Obama
last updated
07/14/09
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