ntrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole
subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an
object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would never
take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no
good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied
still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point,
the laws of your own framing under it; while the new Administration will
have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were
admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the
dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipitate action.
Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who
has never yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust
in the best way all our present difficulty.

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.

* * * * *

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS

SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1865

[Transcriber's note: 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. Chief Justice Salmon
Chase administered the oath of office. In little more than a month, the
President would be assassinated.]

Fellow-Countrymen:

At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office
there is less occasion for an exten