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 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 offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!” If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences 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 offence 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 bond-man’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 a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
When the President and the procession of notables appeared, a tremendous shout, prolonged and loud, arose from the surging ocean of humanity around the Capitol building. Then the sergeant-at-arms of the Senate, the historic Brown, arose and bowed, with his shining black hat in hand, in dumb-show before the crowd, which thereupon became still, and Abraham Lincoln, rising tall and gaunt among the groups about him, stepped forward and read his inaugural address, which was printed in two broad columns upon a single page of large paper. As he advanced from his seat, a roar of applause shook the air, and, again and again repeated, finally died far away on the outer fringe of the throng, like a sweeping wave upon the shore. Just at that moment the sun, which had been obscured all day, burst forth in its unclouded meridian splendor, and flooded the spectacle with glory and with light. Every heart beat quicker at the unexpected ornen, and doubtless not a few mentally prayed that so might the darkness which had obscured the past four years be now dissipated by the sun of prosperity,
Till danger’s troubled night depart,
And the star of peace return.
The inaugural address was received in most profound silence. Every word was clear and audible as the ringing and somewhat shrill tones of Lincoln’s voice sounded over the vast concourse. There was applause, however, at the words, “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 cheer that followed these words lasted long enough to make a considerable pause before he added sententiously, ” and the war came.” There were occasional spurts of applause, too, at other points along this wonderful address. Looking down into the faces of the people, illuminated by the bright rays of the sun, one could see moist eyes and even tearful cheeks as the good President pronounced these noble words : “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 orphans; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” Among the memories of a lifetime, doubtless there are none more fondly cherished by those who were so fortunate as to stand near Lincoln at that historic moment than the recollection of the beautiful solemnity, the tender sympathy, of these inspired utterances, and the rapt silence of the multitudes.
There were many cheers and many tears as this noble address was concluded. Silence being restored, the President turned toward Chief Justice Chase, who, with his right hand uplifted, directed the Bible to be brought forward by the clerk of the Supreme Court. Then Lincoln, laying his right hand upon the open page, repeated the oath of office administered to him by the Chief Justice, after which, solemnly saying, ” So help me God,” he bent forward and reverently kissed the Book, then rose up inaugurated President of the United States for four years from March 4, 1865. A salvo of artillery boomed upon the air, cheer upon cheer rang out, and then, after turning, and bowing to the assembled hosts, the President retired into the Capitol, and, emerging by a basement entrance, took his carriage and was escorted back to the White House by a great procession.
The Book was probably opened at a venture by a clerk. Chief Justice Chase noted the place where Lincoln’s lips touched the page, and he afterward marked the spot with a pencil. The Book so
marked was given by the Chief Justice to Mrs. Lincoln. The President had pressed his lips on the 27th and 28th verses of the fifth chapter of the Book of Isaiah, where were these words :
None shall be weary nor stumble among them ; none shall slumber nor sleep ; neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken :
Whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent, their horses’ hoofs shall be counted like flint, their wheels like a whirlwind.
There was the usual reception at the White House that evening, and, later on, the traditional inauguration ball, at which the President and his wife, most of the members of the cabinet, General Hooker, Admiral Farragut, and other great people were present. The ball was held in the great Hall of Patents in the Interior Department building, and was a very handsome affair ; but its beauty was marred by an extraordinary rush of hungry people, who fairly mobbed the supper-tables, and enacted a scene of confusion whose wildness was similar to some of the antics of the Paris Commune.
But chiefly memorable in the mind of those who saw that second inauguration must still remain the tall, pathetic, melancholy figure of the man who, then inducted into office in the midst of the glad acclaim of thousands of people, and illumined by the deceptive brilliance of a March sunburst, was already standing in the shadow of death.
Quoted in Noah Brooks, Washington, D.C., in Lincoln’s Time, ed. Herbert Mitgang (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971; Athens, Ga., and London: University of Georgia Press, 1989), p. 238.
The following month, on the occasion of his second inauguration, Lincoln delivered a speech that the late Earl Curzon, Chancellor of Oxford University, declared to be “the purest gold of human eloquence, nay of eloquence almost divine.”
Stepping forward and kissing a Bible open at the fifth chapter of Isaiah, he began an address that sounded like the speech of some great character in drama. “It was like a sacred poem,” wrote Carl Schurz. “No ruler had ever spoken words like these to his people. America had never before had a president who had found such words in the depths of his heart.” The closing words of this speech are, in the estimation of the writer, the most noble and beautiful utterances ever delivered by the lips of mortal man. He never reads them without thinking somehow of an organ playing in the subdued light of a great cathedral.
Two months later, to a day, this speech was read at Lincoln’s funeral services in Springfield.
By Dale Carnegie，“Lincoln, the Unknown” ，p.192 Carnegie-185-178-37
Such was Lincoln’s address to the people when opening his second term as President. It was a father’s speech. All its political elements seemed resolved into philosophy, and all philosophy was fatalism. When he was still doubtful of victory, the main purpose of his speeches and open letters was to sustain the nation’s confidence. Now, when victory could only be a question of weeks, he gave all the honor to that force of destiny which he termed God, and ventured to tell his astonished auditors that God’s ways were to be regarded as righteous, even if they should involve the long continuance of bloodshed. After he had for four years devoted himself to all the activities forced on him by circumstances, he was able, relieved from this burden, to resume the role natural to him – that of one who awaits destiny’s decree, and accepts whatever fate assigns. At the same time, the speech is that of an educator, for it has the clarity of old age; it is something of a testament. Yet, broadly regarded, it is not so much a speech as an ode.
By Emil Ludwig,”Abraham Lincoln: And the Times that Tried His Soul” Ludwig-434-09