15 fallen have been so few. While corps, and divisions, and
brigades, and regiments have formed, and fought, and dwin-
dled, and gone out of existence, a great majority of the men
who composed them are still living. The same is true of the
naval service. The election returns prove this. So many voters

20 could not else be found. The states regularly holding elec-
tions, both now and four years ago — to wit : California,
Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky,
Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mis-
souri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon,

25 Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, and
Wisconsin — cast 3,982,011 votes now, against 3,870,222 cast
then; showing an aggregate now of 3,982,011. To this is to
be added 33,762 cast now in the new states of Kansas and
Nevada, which states did not vote in i860; thus swelling the

30 aggregate to 4,015,773, and the net increase during the three
years and a half of war, to 145,551. A table is appended,
showing particulars. To this again should be added the num-
ber of all soldiers in the field from Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Indiana, Illinois, and California,



EXTRACT FROM ANNUAL MESSAGE 115

who by the laws of those states could not vote away from their
homes, and which number cannot be less than 90,000. Nor yet
is this all. The number in organized territories is triple now what
it was four years ago, while thousands, white and black, join us
as the national arms press back the insurgent lines. So much 5
is shown, affirmatively and negatively, by the election.

It is not material to inquire how the increase has been pro-
duced, or to show that it would have been greater but for the
war, which is probably true. The important fact remains demon-
strated that we have more men now than we had when the war 10
began ; that we are not exhausted, nor in process of exhaustion ;
that we are gaining strength, and may, if need be, maintain the
contest indefinitely. This as to men.- Material resources are
now more complete and abundant than ever.

The national resources, then, are unexhausted, and, as we 15
believe, inexhaustible. The public purpose to reestablish and
maintain the national authority is unchanged, and, as we believe,
unchangeable. The manner of continuing the effort remains to
choose. On careful consideration of all the evidence accessible,
it seems to me that no attempt at negotiation with the insurgent 20
leader could result in any good. He would accept nothing short
of severance of the Union — precisely what we will not and
cannot give. His declarations to this effect are explicit and oft
repeated. He does not attempt to deceive us. He affords us
no excuse to deceive ourselves. He cannot voluntarily reaccept 25
the Union ; we cannot voluntarily yield it.

Between him and us the issue is distinct, simple, and inflexible.
It is an issue which can only be tried by war, and decided by victory.
If we yield, we are beaten ; if the Southern people fail him, he is
beaten. Either way it would be the victory and defeat following 30
war. What is tnie, however, of him who heads the insurgent cause,
is not necessarily true of those who follow. Although he cannot
reaccept the Union, they can. Some of them, we know, already
desire peace and reunion. The number of such may increase.



Il6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

They can at any moment have peace simply by laying down
their arms and submitting to the national authority under the
Constitution. After so much the government could not, if it
would, maintain war against them. The loyal people would not
5 sustain or allow it. If questions should remain, we would adjust
them by the peaceful means of legislation, conference, courts,
and votes, operating only in constitutional and lawful channels.
Some certain, and other possible, questions are, and would be,
beyond the executive power to adjust ; as, for instance, the ad-

10 mission of members into Congress, and whatever might require
the appropriation of money. The executive power itself would
be greatly diminished by the cessation of actual war. Pardons
and remissions of forfeitures, however, would still be within
executive control. In what spirit and temper this control would

15 be exercised, can be fairly judged of by the past.

A year ago general pardon and amnesty, upon specified terms,
were offered to all except certain designated classes, and it was
at the same time made known that the excepted classes were
still within contemplation of special clemency. During the year

20 many availed themselves of the general provision, and many
more would, only that the signs of bad faith in some led to such
precautionary measures as rendered the practical process less
easy and certain. During the same time, also, special pardons
have been granted to individuals of the excepted classes, and

25 no voluntary application has been denied.

Thus, practically, the door has been for a full year open to
all, except such as were not in condition to make free choice —
that is, such as were in custody or under constraint. It is still
so open to all ; but the time may come — probably will come —

30 when public duty shall demand that it be closed ; and that in
lieu more rigorous measures than heretofore shall be adopted.
In presenting the abandonment of armed resistance to the
national authority on the part of the insurgents as the only in-
dispensable condition to ending the war on the part of the



SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS 1 17

government, I retract nothing heretofore said as to slaver)^ I
repeat the declaration made a year ago, that " while I remain
in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify
the Emancipation Proclamation, nor shall I return to slavery
any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation, or 5
by any of the acts of Congress."

If the people should, by whatever mode or means, make it
an executive duty to reenslave such persons, another, and not
I, must be their instrument to perform it.

In stating a single condition of peace, I mean simply to say, 10
that the war will cease on the part of the government whenever
it shall have ceased on the part of those who began it.

Abraham Lincoln

SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS

(March 4, 1865)

Fellow Cotintrymc?! : At this second appearing to take the
oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an ex-
tended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, 15
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 at-
tention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is 20
new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which
all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to my-
self ; 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. 25

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



Il8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

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 depre-
cated war ; but one of them would make war rather than let the
5 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 south-
ern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful

10 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.

15 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

20 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

25 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

30 suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in
the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having con-
tinued 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



THE LAST PUBLIC ADDRESS 1 19

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 bondman's two hundred and fifty 5
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." 10

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 15
just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.

THE LAST PUBLIC ADDRESS

(April II. 1865)

We meet this evening not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart.
The evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond, and the surrender
of the principal insurgent army, give hope of a righteous and
speedy peace, whose joyous expression cannot be restrained. 20
In the midst of this, however, He from whom all blessings flow
must not be forgotten. A call for a national thanksgiving is being
prepared, and will be duly promulgated. Nor must those whose .
harder part give us the cause of rejoicing be overlooked. Their
honors must not be parceled out with others. I myself was near 25
the front, and had the high pleasure of transmitting much of the
good news to you ; but no part of the honor for plan or execution
is mine. To General Grant, his skillful officers and brave men,
all belongs. The gallant navy stood ready, but was not in reach
to take active part. By these recent successes the reinauguration 30



I20 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

of the national authority — reconstruction — which has had a
large share of thought from the first, is pressed much more closely
upon our attention. It is fraught with great difficulty. Unlike
a case of war between independent nations, there is no author-

5 ized organ for us to treat with — no one man has authority to
give up the rebellion for any other man. We simply must begin
with and mold from disorganized and discordant elements. Nor
is it a small additional embarrassment that we, the loyal people,
differ among ourselves as to the mode, manner, and measure of

10 reconstruction. As a general rule, I abstain from reading the
reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by
that to which I cannot properly offer an answer. In spite of
this precaution, however, it comes to my knowledge that I am
much censured for some supposed agency in setting up and

15 seeking to sustain the new state government of Louisiana. In
this I have done just so much as, and no more than, the public
knows. In the Annual Message of December, 1863, and in the
accompanying proclamation, I presented a plan of reconstruc-
tion, as the phrase goes, which I promised, if adopted by any

20 state, should be acceptable to and sustained by the executive
government of the nation. I distinctly stated that this was not
the only plan which might possibly be acceptable, and I also
distinctly protested that the executive claimed no right to say
when or whether members should be admitted to seats in Con-

25 gress from such states. This plan was in advance submitted to
the then cabinet, and distinctly approved by every member of it.
One of them suggested that I should then and in that connection
apply the Emancipation Proclamation to the theretofore ex-
cepted parts of Virginia and Louisiana ; that I should drop the

30 suggestion about apprenticeship for freed people, and that I
should omit the protest against my own power in regard to the
admission of members to Congress. But even he approved
every part and parcel of the plan which has since been
employed or touched by the action of Louisiana.



THE LAST PUBLIC ADDRESS 121

The new constitution of Louisiana, declaring emancipation for
the whole state, practically applies the proclamation to the part
previously excepted. It does not adopt apprenticeship for freed
people, and it is silent, as it could not well be otherwise, about
the admission of members to Congress. So that, as it applied to 5
Louisiana, every member of the cabinet fully approved the plan.
The message went to Congress, and I received many com-
mendations of the plan, written and verbal, and not a single
objection to it from any professed emancipationist came to my
knowledge until after the news reached Washington that the 10
people of Louisiana had begun to move in accordance with it.
From about July, 1862, I had corresponded with different per-
sons supposed to be interested [in] seeking a reconstruction of
a state government for Louisiana. When the message of 1863,
with the plan before mentioned, reached New Orleans, General 15
Banks wrote me that he was confident that the people, with his
military cooperation, would reconstruct substantially on that plan.
I wrote to him and some of them to try it. They tried it, and
the result is known. Such has been my only agency in getting
up the Louisiana government. As to sustaining it, my promise is 20
out, as before stated. But as bad promises are better broken than
kept, I shall treat this as a bad promise, and break it whenever
I shall be convinced that keeping it is adverse to the public in-
terest ; but I have not yet been so convinced. I have been
shown a letter on this subject, supposed to be an able one, in 25
which the writer expresses regret that my mind has not seemed
to be definitely fixed on the question whether the seceded
states, so called, are in the Union or out of it. It would perhaps
add astonishment to his regret were he to learn that since I have
found professed Union men endeavoring to make that ques- ^o
tion, I have purposely forborne any public expression upon it.
As appears to me, that question has not been, nor yet is, a
practically material one, and that any discussion of it, while it thus
remains practically immaterial, could have no effect other than



122 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

the mischievous one of dividing our friends. As yet, whatever it
may hereafter become, that question is bad as the basis of a con-
troversy, and good for nothing at all — a merely pernicious
abstraction. We all agree that the seceded states, so called, are
5 out of their proper practical relation with the Union, and that the
sole object of the government, civil and military, in regard to those
states is to again get them into that proper practical relation. I
believe that it is not only possible, but in fact easier, to do this
without deciding or even considering whether these states have

10 ever been out of the Union, than with it. Finding themselves
safely at home, it would be utterly immaterial whether they had
ever been abroad. Let us all join in doing the acts necessary to
restoring the proper practical relations between these states and
the Union, and each forever after innocently indulge his own

15 opinion whether in doing the acts he brought the states from
without into the Union, or only gave them proper assistance,
they never having been out of it. The amount of constituency,
so to speak, on which the new Louisiana government rests,
would be more satisfactory to all if it contained 50,000, or

20 30,000, or even 20,000, instead of only about 12,000, as it
does. It is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective fran-
chise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer
that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those
who serve our cause as soldiers. Still, the question is not

25 whether the Louisiana government, as it stands, is quite all that
is desirable. The question is. Will it be wiser to take it as it is
and help to improve it, or to reject and disperse it ? Can Loui-
siana be brought into proper practical relation with the Union
sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new state gov-

30 ernment ? Some 12,000 voters in the heretofore slave state of
Louisiana have sworn allegiance to the Union, assumed to be
the rightful political power of the state, held elections, organized
a state government, adopted a free-state constitution, giving
the benefit of public schools equally to black and white, and



THE LAST PUBLIC ADDRESS 123

empowering the legislature to confer the elective franchise upon
the colored man. Their legislature has already voted to ratify
the constitutional amendment recently passed by Congress,
abolishing slavery throughout the nation. These 12,000 persons
are thus fully committed to the Union and to perpetual free- 5
dom in the state — committed to the very things, and nearly
all the things, the nation wants — and they ask the nation's recog-
nition and its assistance to make good their committal.

Now", if we reject and spurn them, we do our utmost to dis-
organize and disperse them. We, in effect, say to the white man : 10
You are worthless, or worse ; we will neither help you nor be
helped by you. To the blacks we say : This cup of liberty which
these, your old masters, hold to your lips we will dash from you,
and leave you to the chances of gathering the spilled and scattered
contents in some vague and undefined when, where, and how. 15
If this course, discouraging and paralyzing both white and black,
has any tendency to bring Louisiana into proper practical rela-
tions with the Union, I have so far been unable to perceive
it. If, on the contrary, we recognize and sustain the new gov-
ernment of Louisiana, the converse of all this is made true. We -o
encourage the hearts and nerve the arms of the 12,000 to
adhere to their work, and argue for it, and proselyte for it,
and fight for it, and feed it, and grow it, and ripen it to a com-
plete success. The colored man, too, in seeing all united for
him, is inspired with vigilance, and energy, and daring, to the -5
same end. Grant that he desires the elective franchise, will he
not attain it sooner by saving the already advanced steps toward
it than by running backward over them ? Concede that the new
government of Louisiana is only to what it should be as the egg
is to the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the 3°
egg than by smashing it.

Again, if we reject Louisiana we also reject one vote in favor
of the proposed amendment to the national Constitution. To
meet this proposition it has been argued that no more than



124 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

three fourths of those states which have not attempted secession
are necessary to validly ratify the amendment. I do not commit
myself against this further than to say that such a ratification
would be questionable, and sure to be persistently questioned,
5 while a ratification by three fourths of all the states would be
unquestioned and unquestionable. I repeat the question : Can
Louisiana be brought into proper practical relation with the
Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new state gov-
ernment ? What has been said of Louisiana will apply generally

10 to other states. And yet so great peculiarities pertain to each
state, and such important and sudden changes occur in the same
state, and withal so new and unprecedented is the whole case that
no exclusive and inflexible plan can safely be prescribed as to
details and collaterals. Such exclusive and inflexible plan would

15 surely become a new entanglement. Important principles may
and must be inflexible. In the present situation, as the phrase
goes, it may be my duty to make some new announcement to
the people of the South. I am considering, and shall not fail to
act when satisfied that action will be proper.



NOTES

(Heavyface numbers refer to pages of text, other numbers to lines.)

3 ^^Vieivs on Mo7iey-loaning, Ediicatioii, and Lawmaking'''' : Lincoln's
first public address was to the people of Sangamon County, Illinois.
He had already announced himself as a candidate for the General
Assembly of the state (the convention system was not in vogue at that
time). The only preliminary expected of a candidate was to state his
views in a printed circular, which was distributed through his district.
Lincoln's circular was a document of about two thousand words, the
bulk of it given to a subject of absorbing interest at that period, — the
public utility of internal improvements. In the interval between the ap-
pearance of this circular in March and the election in August came
the Black Hawk War, in which Lincoln served as captain of a volun-
teer company. Lincoln was defeated in the August election, — the only
time, he says in his brief autobiography, that he was ever defeated on
the direct vote of the people.

5 '-^Political Views in i8j6 " .• Lincoln was first elected to the Gen-
eral Assembly of Illinois in 1834. He ran for reelection in 1836 and
was successful. It was at this time that this letter to the Journal was
written. The only expression on woman suffrage to be found in Lin-
coln's collected works is in this document.

6 ^^ First Public Protest against Slaveiy'''' : The year that this public
protest against slavery was published, a proslavery mob made up of citi-
zens of Alton, Illinois, killed Elijah Lovejoy, the editor of an anti-slavery
newspaper published in the town. At Springfield, where Mr. Lincoln
lived, the citizens held a mass meeting and resolved that " the efforts of
the abolitionists in this community are neither necessary nor useful."

7 ^''Letter to Williamson Diirley'" : Williamson Durley and his brother
Madison were prominent leaders of the " Liberal party," which in 1845
nominated James G. Birney as its candidate for the presidency.

9 ^'Letter to Williajn H. Herndon " .• Mr. Herndon, in his " Life of
Lincoln," explains the circumstance which called out this letter : " I
felt at this time (1848), somewhat in advance of its occurrence, the
death throes of the Whig party. I did not conceal my suspicions, and

12;



126 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

one of the Springfield papers gave my sentiments liberal quotation in
its columns. I felt gloomy over the prospect, and cut out these news-
paper slips and sent them to Lincoln. Accompanying these I wrote
him a letter equally melancholy in tone, in which, among other things,
I reflected severely on the stubbornness and bad judgment of the fos-
sils in the party, who were constantly holding the young men back.
This brought from him a letter, July lo, 1848, which is clearly Lin-
colnian and full of plain philosophy. Not the least singular of all is
his allusion to himself as an old man, although he had scarcely passed
his thirty-ninth year."

13 ^"^ Letter to John D. Jokjiston''^ : Abraham Lincoln's mother, Nancy
Hanks Lincoln, died on October 5, 1818. In December, 1819, Thomas
Lincoln married, in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, Mrs. Sarah Bush John-
ston, a widow whom he had known as a young girl. Mrs. Johnston had
three children, the oldest of whom was John D. These children grew
up with Abraham, and he always spoke of John Johnston as his brother.

16 ^^ Repeal of the Missouri Comp?'o??iise^^ : The Missouri Compro-

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13