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PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. Inaugural Address 



of ABRAHAM LINCOLN as President of the 

 United State*, March 4th, 1865. 

 fellow- Country men : 



At this second appearing to take the oath of the 

 presidential office, there is less occasion for an ex- 

 tended address than there was at the first. Then, a 

 statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pur- 

 sued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expi- 

 ration of four years, durintr which public declarations 

 have been constantly called forth on emery 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 re- 

 gard to it is ventured. 



On the occasion corresponding to this four years 

 ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an im- 

 pending civil war. All dreaded it; all sought to 

 avert it. While the inaugural address was being de- 

 livered 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 con- 

 stituted a peculiar smd 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 ter- 

 ritorial 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 be- 

 fore, 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 



Eurposes. " Woe unto the world because of offences ! 

 >r it must needs be that offences come, but woe to 

 that man by whom the offence cometh." If we shall 

 suppose 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 ofi'ence 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 bondman'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 ao, so still it must be said, " The 

 judgments of the Lord are true and righteous alto- 

 gether." 



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 wouuds ; 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. 

 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



Message of President JOHNSOX, at the first 



session of the thirty-ninth Congress. 

 Fellow- Citizen* of the Senate and 



House of Representatives : 



To express gratitude to God, in the name of the 

 People, for the preservation of the United States, is 

 my first duty in addressing you. Our thoughts next 

 revert to the death of the late President by an act of 

 parricidal treason. The grief of the nation is still 

 fresh ; it finds some solace in the consideration that 

 he lived to enjoy the highest proof of its confidence 

 by entering on the renewed term of the Chief Magis- 

 tracy, to which he had been elected ; that he brought 

 the civil war substantially to a close ; that his loss was 

 deplored in all parts of the Union ; and that foreign 

 nations have rendered justice to his memory. His 

 removal cast upon me a heavier weight of cares than 

 ever devolved upon any one of his predecessors. To 

 fulfil my trust I need the support and confidence of 

 all who are associated with me in the various depart- 

 ments of Government, and the support and confi- 

 dence of the people. There is but one way in which 

 I can hope to gain their necessary aid ; it is, to state 

 with frankness the principles which guide my con- 

 duct, and their application to the present state of 

 affairs, well aware that the efficiency of my labors 

 will, in a great measure, depend on your and their 

 undivided approbation. 



The Union of the United States of America was 

 intended by its authors to last as long as the States 

 themselves shall last. " The Union shall be per- 

 petual" are the words of the Confederation. "To 

 form a more perfect Union," by an ordinance of the 

 people of the United States, is the declared purpose 

 of the Constitution. The hand of Divine Providence 

 was never more plainly visible in the affairs of men 

 than in the framing and the adopting of that instru- 

 ment. It is, beyond comparison, the greatest event 

 in American history ; and indeed is it not of all events 

 in modern times, the most pregnant with consequences 

 for every people of the earth ? The members of the 

 Convention which prepared it brought to their work 

 the experience of the Confederation, of their several 

 States, and of other Republican Governments, old and 

 new ; but they needed and they obtained a wisdom 

 superior to experience.. And when for its validity it 

 required the approval of a people that occupied a 

 large part of a continent and acted separately in many 

 distinct conventions, what is more wonderful than 

 that, after earnest contention and long discussion, 

 all feelings and all opinions were ultimately drawn 

 in one way to its support? 



The Constitution to which life was thus imparted 

 contains within itself ample resources for its own 

 preservation. It has power to enforce the laws, 

 punish treason, and insure domestic tranquillity. In 

 case of the usurpation of the government of a State 

 by one man, or an oligarchy, it becomes a duty of 

 the United States to make good the guaranty to that 

 State of a republican form of government, and so to 

 maintain the homogeneousness of all. Does the 

 lapse of time reveal defects? A simple mode of 

 amendment is provided in the Constitution itself, so 

 that its conditions can always be made to conform to 

 the requirements of advancing civilization. No room 

 is allowed even for the thought of a possibility of its 

 coming to an end. And these powers of self-preser- 

 vation have always been asserted in their complete 

 integrity by every patriotic Chief Mairistrate by 

 Jefferson and Jackson, not less than by Washington 

 and Madison. The parting advice of the Father of 

 his Country, while yet President, to the people of the 

 United States, was, that "the free Constitution, 

 which was the work of their hands, might be sacredly 



