Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, 1865

In brief

Delivered on March 4, 1865, at the Capitol in Washington, about five weeks before Lee's surrender at Appomattox and six weeks before Lincoln's assassination.

Lincoln speaks for about seven hundred words. He says that there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first inauguration. Then, four years earlier, thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war, which all dreaded and sought to avert, but one side would make war rather than let the nation survive and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. The war came.

He names slavery as the cause. One-eighth of the population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part, and these slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. Both sides, he says, read the same Bible and prayed to the same God, and each invoked His aid against the other, and the prayers of neither had been fully answered. He suggests that American slavery is an offense that God may have willed to remove through the war, and that if God wills it to continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil is sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash is paid by another drawn with the sword, still it must be said that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

The close turns to the future with the plea for malice toward none and charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for those who have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, and to achieve a just and lasting peace.

Key passages

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.

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.

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."

Why it matters now

The address is among the most theologically serious speeches in American politics. It declines to claim that God is on the Union's side, treats slavery as a national sin and joins firmness to generosity, which makes it a standing example of how a nation can speak of faith in public life without triumphalism.

The full text

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 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.