Download Lincoln`s First Inaugural Address "I hold, that in contemplation of

Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address
"I hold, that in contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitution, the Union of these States
is perpetual."
-- March 4, 1861 - Lincoln's First Inaugural Address
"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."
-- March 4, 1861 - Lincoln's First Inaugural Address
"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."
-- March 4, 1861 - Lincoln's First Inaugural Address
"The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every
living heart and hearth-stone, 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."
-- March 4, 1861 - Lincoln's First Inaugural Address
"Plainly, the central idea of secession, is the essence of anarchy."
-- March 4, 1861 - Lincoln's First Inaugural Address
"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'."
-- March 4, 1861 - Lincoln's First Inaugural Address
Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address
"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.”
-- March 4, 1865 Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address
“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."
-- March 4, 1865 - Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address
"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."
-- March 4, 1865 - Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address
“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.”
-- March 4, 1865 - Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address
The Emancipation Proclamation
“The people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then,
thenceforward, and forever free"
-- January 1, 1863 - Final Emancipation Proclamation
"The Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority
thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to
repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom."
-- January 1, 1863 - Final Emancipation Proclamation
"Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me
vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual
armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and
necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion"
-- January 1, 1863 - Final Emancipation Proclamation
"And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all
persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward
shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and
naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons."
-- January 1, 1863 - Final Emancipation Proclamation
The Gettysburg Address
This famous two-minute speech given by Abraham Lincoln was delivered at the sight of the
Battle of Gettysburg to consecrate the battlefield as a graveyard.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation,
conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
-- November 19, 1863 - Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived
and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come
to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that
that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
-- November 19, 1863 - Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate -- we cannot consecrate -- we cannot hallow -- this
ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our
poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but
it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the
unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
-- November 19, 1863 - Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these
honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure
of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this
nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by
the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
-- November 19, 1863 - Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
Jefferson Davis’ Inaugural Address
“I enter upon the duties of the office to which I have been chosen with the hope that the
beginning of our career as a Confederacy may not be obstructed by hostile opposition to our
enjoyment of the separate existence and independence which we have asserted, and, with the
blessing of Providence, intend to maintain.”
“Our present condition, achieved in a manner unprecedented in the history of nations, illustrates
the American idea that governments rest upon the consent of the governed, and that it is the right
of the people to alter or abolish governments whenever they become destructive of the ends for
which they were established.”
“The right solemnly proclaimed at the birth of the States, and which has been affirmed and
reaffirmed in the bills of rights of States subsequently admitted into the Union of 1789,
undeniably recognize in the people the power to resume the authority delegated for the purposes
of government.”
“…if we may not hope to avoid war, we may at least expect that posterity will acquit us of
having needlessly engaged in it.”
“Doubly justified by the absence of wrong on our part, and by wanton aggression on the part of
others, there can be no cause to doubt that the courage and patriotism of the people of the
Confederate States will be found equal to any measures of defense which honor and security may
require.”
“As a necessity, not a choice, we have resorted to the remedy of separation; and henceforth our
energies must be directed to the conduct of our own affairs, and the perpetuity of the
Confederacy which we have formed.”
“We have changed the constituent parts, but not the system of our Government. The Constitution
formed by our fathers is that of these Confederate States, in their exposition of it, and in the
judicial construction it has received, we have a light which reveals its true meaning.”