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, urgent
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 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.
|