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 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.
March 4, 1865