Lincoln's First Inaugural Address
March 4, 1861
Fellow citizens of the United States: in compliance with a custom as old as the government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly and to take, in your presence, the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States, to be taken by the President "before he enters on the execution of his office."
I do not
consider it necessary, at present, for me to discuss those
matters of administration about which there is no special
anxiety, or excitement.
Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the
Southern States that by the accession of a Republican
administration their property and their peace and personal
security are to be endangered. There has never been any
reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most
ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed
and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly
all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I
do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that
"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere
with the institution of slavery where it exists. I believe
I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination
to do so." Those who nominated and elected me did so with
full knowledge that I had made this and many similar
declarations, and had never recanted them. And, more than
this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as
a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic
resolution which I now read:
"Resolved: that the maintenance inviolate of the rights of
the States, and especially the right of each State to order
and control its own domestic institutions according to its
own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of
power on which the perfection and endurance of our
political fabric depend, and we denounce the lawless
invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or
Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the
gravest of crimes."
I now reiterate these sentiments; and, in doing so, I only
press upon the public attention the most conclusive
evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the
property, peace, and security of no section are to be in
any wise endangered by the now incoming administration. I
add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with
the Constitution and the laws, can be given, will be
cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully demanded,
for whatever cause-as cheerfully to one section as to
another.
There is much controversy about the delivering up of
fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is
as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its
provisions:
"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the
laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence
of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such
service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the
party to whom such service or labor may be due."
It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended
by those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call
fugitive slaves; and the intention of the lawgiver is the
law. All members of Congress swear their support to the
whole Constitution-to this provision as much as to any
other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases
come within the terms of this clause "shall be delivered
up", their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the
effort in good temper, could they not with nearly equal
unanimity frame and pass a law by means of which to keep
good that unanimous oath?
There is some difference of opinion whether this clause
should be enforced by national or by State authority; but
surely that difference is not a very material one. If the
slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little
consequence to him or to others by which authority it is
done. And should any one in any case be content that his
oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy
as to HOW it shall be kept?
Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the
safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane
jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not,
in any case, surrendered as a slave? And might it not be
well at the same time to provide by law for the enforcement
of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that
"the citizen of each State shall be entitled to all
privileges and immunities of citizens in the several
States?"
I take the official oath today with no mental reservations,
and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by
any hypercritical rules. And while I do not choose now to
specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be
enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all,
both in official and private stations, to conform to and
abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to
violate any of them, trusting to find impunity in having
them held to be unConstitutional.
It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a
President under our national Constitution. During that
period fifteen different and greatly distinguished citizens
have, in succession, administered the executive branch of
the government. They have conducted it through many perils,
and generally with great success. Yet, with all this scope
of precedent, I now enter upon the same task for the brief
Constitutional term of four years under great and peculiar
difficulty. A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore
only menaced, is now formidably attempted.
I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and of the
Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual.
Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental
law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that
no government proper ever had a provision in its organic
law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the
express provisions of our National Constitution, and the
Union will endure forever--it being impossible to destroy
it except by some action not provided for in the instrument
itself.
Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but
an association of States in the nature of contract merely,
can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all
the parties who made it? One party to a contract may
violate it--break it, so to speak; but does it not require
all to lawfully rescind it?
Descending from these general principles, we find the
proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is
perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The
Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed,
in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was
matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in
1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then
thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it
should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in
1778. And, finally, in 1787 one of the declared objects for
ordaining and establishing the Constitution was "TO FORM A
MORE PERFECT UNION."
But if the destruction of the Union by one or by a part
only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is LESS
perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital
element of perpetuity.
It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere
motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that Resolves and
Ordinances to that effect are legally void; and that acts
of violence, within any State or States, against the
authority of the United States, are insurrectionary or
revolutionary, according to circumstances.
I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitution and
the laws, the Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my
ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself
expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be
faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to
be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform it so
far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, the
American people, shall withhold the requisite means, or in
some authoritative manner direct the contrary. I trust this
will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared
purpose of the Union that it WILL Constitutionally defend
and maintain itself.
In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence;
and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the
national authority. The power confided to me will be used
to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places
belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and
imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these
objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force
against or among the people anywhere. Where hostility to
the United States, in any interior locality, shall be so
great and universal as to prevent competent resident
citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no
attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for
that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the
government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the
attempt to do so would be so irritating, and so nearly
impracticable withal, that I deem it better to forego for
the time the uses of such offices.
The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished
in all parts of the Union. So far as possible, the people
everywhere shall have that sense of perfect security which
is most favorable to calm thought and reflection. The
course here indicated will be followed unless current
events and experience shall show a modification or change
to be proper, and in every case and exigency my best
discretion will be exercised according to circumstances
actually existing, and with a view and a hope of a peaceful
solution of the national troubles and the restoration of
fraternal sympathies and affections.
That there are persons in one section or another who seek
to destroy the Union at all events, and are glad of any
pretext to do it, I will neither affirm nor deny; but if
there be such, I need address no word to them. To those,
however, who really love the Union may I not speak?
Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction
of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its
memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to ascertain
precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so desperate a step
while there is any possibility that any portion of the ills
you fly from have no real existence? Will you, while the
certain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones
you fly from--will you risk the commission of so fearful a
mistake?
All profess to be content in the Union if all
Constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then,
that any right, plainly written in the Constitution, has
been denied? I think not. Happily the human mind is so
constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of
doing this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in
which a plainly written provision of the Constitution has
ever been denied. If by the mere force of numbers a
majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written
Constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view,
justify revolution--certainly would if such a right were a
vital one. But such is not our case. All the vital rights
of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to
them by affirmations and negations, guaranties and
prohibitions, in the Constitution, that controversies never
arise concerning them. But no organic law can ever be
framed with a provision specifically applicable to every
question which may occur in practical administration. No
foresight can anticipate, nor any document of reasonable
length contain, express provisions for all possible
questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by
national or State authority? The Constitution does not
expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the
Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. MUST
Congress protect slavery in the Territories? The
Constitution does not expressly say.
From questions of this class spring all our constitutional
controversies, and we divide upon them into majorities and
minorities. If the minority will not acquiesce, the
majority must, or the government must cease. There is no
other alternative; for continuing the government is
acquiescence on one side or the other.
If a minority in such case will secede rather than
acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will divide
and ruin them; for a minority of their own will secede from
them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such
minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a new
confederacy a year or two hence arbitrarily secede again,
precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to
secede from it? All who cherish disunion sentiments are now
being educated to the exact temper of doing this.
Is there such perfect identity of interests among the
States to compose a new Union, as to produce harmony only,
and prevent renewed secession?
Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of
anarchy. A majority held in restraint by constitutional
checks and limitations, and always changing easily with
deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is
the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects
it does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism.
Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a
permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that,
rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in
some form is all that is left.
I do not forget the position, assumed by some, that
Constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme
Court; nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding,
in any case, upon the parties to a suit, as to the object
of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high
respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all
other departments of the government. And while it is
obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in
any given case, still the evil effect following it, being
limited to that particular case, with the chance that it
may be overruled and never become a precedent for other
cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a
different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen
must confess that if the policy of the government, upon
vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be
irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the
instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between
parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to
be their own rulers, having to that extent practically
resigned their government into the hands of that eminent
tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the
court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not
shrink to decide cases properly brought before them, and it
is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their
decisions to political purposes.
One section of our country believes slavery is RIGHT, and
ought to be extended, while the other believes it is WRONG,
and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial
dispute. The fugitive-slave clause of the Constitution, and
the law for the suppression of the foreign slave-trade, are
each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a
community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly
supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide
by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break
over in each. This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured; and
it would be worse in both cases AFTER the separation of the
sections than BEFORE. The foreign slave-trade, now
imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived,
without restriction, in one section, while fugitive slaves,
now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at
all by the other.
Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove
our respective sections from each other, nor build an
impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be
divorced, and go out of the presence and beyond the reach
of each other; but the different parts of our country
cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face, and
intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue
between them. Is it possible, then, to make that
intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after
separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier
than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully
enforced between aliens than laws can among friends?
Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when,
after much loss on both sides, an no gain on either, you
cease fighting, the identical old questions as to terms of
intercourse are again upon you.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people
who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the
existing government, they can exercise their CONSTITUTIONAL
right of amending it, or their REVOLUTIONARY right to
dismember or overthrow it. I cannot be ignorant of the fact
that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of
having the national Constitution amended. While I make no
recommendation of amendments, I fully recognize the
rightful authority of the people over the whole subject, to
be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the
instrument itself; and I should, under existing
circumstances, favor rather than oppose a fair opportunity
being afforded the people to act upon it. I will venture to
add that to me the convention mode seems preferable, in
that it allows amendments to originate with the people
themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or
reject propositions originated by others not especially
chosen for the purpose, and which might not be precisely
such as they would wish to either accept or refuse. I
understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution--which
amendment, however, I have not seen--has passed Congress,
to the effect that the Federal Government shall never
interfere with the domestic institutions of the States,
including that of persons held to service. To avoid
misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my
purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to
say that, holding such a provision to now be implied
Constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made
express and irrevocable.
The chief magistrate derives all his authority from the
people, and they have conferred none upon him to fix terms
for the separation of the states. The people themselves can
do this also if they choose; but the executive, as such,
has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the
present government, as it came to his hands, and to
transmit it, unimpaired by him, to his successor.
Why should there not be a patient confidence in the
ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or
equal hope in the world? In our present differences is
either party without faith of being in the right? If the
Almighty Ruler of Nations, with his eternal truth and
justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the
South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail, by
the judgment of this great tribunal, the American people.
By the frame of the government under which we live, this
same people have wisely given their public servants but
little power for mischief; and have, with equal wisdom,
provided for the return of that little to their own hands
at very short intervals. While the people retain their
virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of
wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the
government in the short space of four years.
My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and WELL upon this
whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.
If there be an object to HURRY any of you in hot haste to a
step which you would never take DELIBERATELY, that object
will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can
be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied,
still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the
sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it;
while the new administration will have no immediate power,
if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you
who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute,
there still is no single good reason for precipitate
action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm
reliance on him who has never yet forsaken this favored
land, are still competent to adjust in the best way all our
present difficulty.
In YOUR hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not
in MINE, is the momentous issue of civil war. The
government will not assail YOU. You can have no conflict
without being yourselves the aggressors. YOU have no oath
registered in heaven to destroy the government, while _I_
shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and
defend it."
I am loathe to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We
must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it
must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of
memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave
to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad
land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again
touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of
our nature.
Lincoln's 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 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 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 his orphan--to do all
which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace
among ourselves, and with all nations.