Lincoln's Greatest Speech

could 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 offences, for it must needs be that offences come, but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh. If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offences 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 offence 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 a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. 1. INAUGURATION DAY. President Abraham Lincoln had every reason to be hopeful as Inauguration Day, March 4, 1865. The Confederacy was splintered, if not shattered. On February 1, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman led sixty thousand troops out of Savannah. Slashing through South Carolina, they wreaked havoc in the state that had been the seed-bed of secession. To celebrate victories in Columbia, and Charleston, South Carolina, and Wilmington, North Carolina, Lincoln ordered a night-time illumination in Washington on February 22, the birthday of George Washington. Crowds celebrated these achievements in song, as the harbinger of the end of the hostilities. At the same time, Union General Ulysses S. Grant was besieging Petersburg, Virginia, twenty miles south of Richmond. Despite Confederate General Robert E. Lee's previous record for forestalling defeat, it was clear that the badly outnumbered Confederates could not hold out much longer. Everything pointed toward victory. Apprehension intruded upon this hopeful spirit. Rumors were flying about the capital that desperate Confederates, now realizing that defeat was imminent, would attempt to abduct or assassinate the President. Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, took extraordinary precautions. All roads leading to Washington had been heavily picketed for some days, and the bridges patrolled with extra vigilance. The Eighth Illinois Cavalry was sent out from Fairfax Courthouse with orders to look for suspicious characters. The problem was greatly complicated by the presence of large numbers of Confederate deserters, who now roamed the capital. Stanton posted sharpshooters on the buildings, that would ring the inaugural ceremonies. Plainclothes detectives roved the city in keeping track of questionable persons. NOTE. The detailed descriptions of different aspects of the inaugural week are taken from the accounts in numerous newspapers. The newspapers of this era were intensely political, often serving as political organs for parties or elements within parties. Their partisan points of view have been taken into account in constructing the context. END OF NOTE. After four years as a war president, Lincoln could look ahead to four years as a peace president. With no Congress in session until December to hamper him, he would have free reign to do some peacemaking on his own. NOTE. In Lincoln's time, the old Congress ended on March 4, the date of his inauguration, but a new Congress did not convene until December. END OF NOTE. Congress were even betting that the 16th president would be inaugurated.