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,
insurgents' agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without
war--seeking to dissolve the Union and divide its 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.
The prayer of both could not be answered--those of neither have 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 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 soon 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 by 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 for his orphan;
to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among
ourselves, and with all nations.