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To Bind Up Our Nation's Wounds
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…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 seat 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 bond-man’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.”
http://www.civilwarbummer.com/lincolns-second-inaugural-eloquence-or-bind-up-the-nations-wounds/
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