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 loath 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.
INAUGURAL ADDRESSES OF THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES
Abraham Lincoln
SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS
SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1865
***
Weeks of wet weather preceding Lincoln's second inauguration had
caused Pennsylvania Avenue to become a sea of mud and standing
water. Thousands of spectators stood in thick mud at the Capitol
grounds to hear the President. As he stood on the East Portico to
take the executive oath, the completed Capitol dome over the
President's head was a physical reminder of the resolve of his
Administration throughout the years of civil war.
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