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006 - Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address · Noted Speeches of Abraham Lincoln

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  Speaker 1: Section six of Noted Speeches of Abraham Lincoln, edited by
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  Speaker 1: Lillian Marie Briggs. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
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  Speaker 1: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Fred Aboud.
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  Speaker 1: Noted Speeches of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Lillian Marie Briggs.
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  Speaker 1: Section six Lincoln's second inaugural Address, March fourth, eighteen sixty five.
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  Speaker 1: Fellow countrymen, at this second, appearing to take the oath
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  Speaker 1: of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an
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  Speaker 1: extended address than there was at the first. Then a
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  Speaker 1: statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued
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  Speaker 1: seemed very fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of
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  Speaker 1: four years during which public declarations have been constantly called
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  Speaker 1: forth on every point and phase of the great contest,
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  Speaker 1: which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of
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  Speaker 1: the nation, little that is new could be presented. The
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  Speaker 1: progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends,
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  Speaker 1: is as well known to the public as to myself,
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  Speaker 1: and it is I trust reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all,
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  Speaker 1: with high hope for the future. No prediction in regard
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  Speaker 1: to it is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this
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  Speaker 1: four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an
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  Speaker 1: impending civil war, all dreaded it, all sought to avoid it.
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  Speaker 1: While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place,
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  Speaker 1: devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents
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  Speaker 1: were in the city seeking to destroy it without war,
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  Speaker 1: seeking to dissolve the union and divide the effects by negotiation.
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  Speaker 1: Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make
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  Speaker 1: war rather than let the nation survive, and the other
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  Speaker 1: would accept war rather than let it perish, and the
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  Speaker 1: war king. One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves,
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  Speaker 1: not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the
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  Speaker 1: southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and
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  Speaker 1: powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the
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  Speaker 1: cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this
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  Speaker 1: interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend
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  Speaker 1: the Union even by war. While the government claimed no
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  Speaker 1: right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement
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  Speaker 1: of it, a party expected for the war the magnitude
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  Speaker 1: or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated
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  Speaker 1: that the cause of the conflict might cease with or
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  Speaker 1: even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for
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  Speaker 1: an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding.
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  Speaker 1: Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God,
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  Speaker 1: and each invokes his aid against the other. It may
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  Speaker 1: seem strange that any men should dare to ask a
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  Speaker 1: just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat
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  Speaker 1: of other men's faces. But let us judge not that
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  Speaker 1: we be not judged. The prayers of both could not
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  Speaker 1: be answered, that of neither has been answered fully. The
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  Speaker 1: Almighty has his own purposes. Woe unto the world because
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  Speaker 1: of offenses, For it must needs be that offenses come,
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  Speaker 1: but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.
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  Speaker 1: If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of
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  Speaker 1: these offenses, which, in the providence of God must needs come,
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  Speaker 1: but which having continued through his appointed time, he now
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  Speaker 1: wills to remove, and that he gives to both North
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  Speaker 1: and South this terrible war. As the woe do to
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  Speaker 1: those by whom the offense came shall we discern therein
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  Speaker 1: any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in
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  Speaker 1: a living God always ascribed to him. Fondly do we hope,
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  Speaker 1: fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of war
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  Speaker 1: may soon pass away. Yet if God wills, then it
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  Speaker 1: continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two
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  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk,
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  Speaker 1: and until every drop of blood drawn with the lefe
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  Speaker 1: shall be paid with another drawn with the sword. As
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  Speaker 1: was said three thousand years ago, so still it must
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  Speaker 1: be said, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous, altogether,
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  Speaker 1: with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness
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  Speaker 1: in the right, as God gives us to see the right.
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  Speaker 1: Let us strive on to finish the work we are in,
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  Speaker 1: to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him
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  Speaker 1: who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow
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  Speaker 1: and orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish
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  Speaker 1: a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
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  Speaker 1: End of Section six