Abraham Lincoln – Five dollar bill picture.

Abraham Lincoln was now fifty-six years old. At six feet and four inches tall, Lincoln often wore clothes that did not fit just right, he was described as being gawky or awkward. Lincoln had a tenor, falsetto-like voice, and he’d had only one year of formal education. Nothing about Abraham Lincoln would lead people to think this man was a powerful speaker. Note: You may read about Andrew Johnson’s drunken behavior during Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural in this post.

As Lincoln began his Second Inaugural Address, the horrible weather eased. The wind stopped, and the sun broke through the clouds to illuminate Lincoln at the podium. No one knew yet exactly when the The Civil War would end, but it was now nearing an end. President Lincoln began to look ahead, and included in his Second Inaugural Address are these memorable words:

"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 lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."

In the gathered crowd listening to Lincoln was Frederick Douglass. Douglass was a former slave, abolitionist, speaker, and newspaper editor. When Lincoln gave his First Inaugural Address, Douglass thought Lincoln was much too soft toward the South. Douglass twice met with Lincoln, once in 1863 and again in 1864. Douglass’ opinion of Lincoln ran hot or cold depending upon the current situation of the Civil War, and Lincoln’s leadership. After Lincoln gave his Second Inaugural Address, he sought Frederick Douglass out at a following reception. Lincoln wanted to know what Douglass thought of the speech. Douglass said to Lincoln; "Mr. Lincoln, that was a sacred effort."

Barnes&Noble: Tried by War, by James M. McPherson

A photograph of that day shows a twenty-six-year-old actor in the crowd listening to Lincoln as he gives his Second Inaugural Address. The young actor’s name is John Wilkes Booth, and he hates Abraham Lincoln. Only forty-one days later, Abraham Lincoln would belong to the ages … assassinated by John Wilkes Booth.

Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address is one of his best speeches. Today, it is engraved on the north wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Fellow-Countrymen:

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, urgent 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 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 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 offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses 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 offense 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 lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery in the United States. The Senate had passed an amendment abolishing slavery on April 8, 1864 but the House defeated it in June, 1864. The House then passed the Thirteenth Amendment on January 31, 1865. The next day, President Lincoln approved the Joint Resolution of Congress and submitted this potential amendment to the state legislatures for ratification. By December 18, 1865 the states had ratified the Thirteenth Amendment and it was proclaimed in effect. That was a good day. ”Hello, Massa; bottom rail on top dis time.” — An African-American Union soldier spoke these words to his former master, who was now a prisoner.

Picture is from the National Archives and shows the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

Worth noting:

* On April 9, 1865 General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia thus ending the Civil War.

* President Lincoln had issued his Emancipation Proclamation On January 1, 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation declared free the slaves in the parts of the country which were in rebellion. Lincoln’s proclamation contained the words, ”all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; . . ..” The Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to the states which had remained in the Union.

* President Abraham Lincoln did not live to see the Thirteenth Amendment, with its abolishment of slavery, become part of the Constitution.

Barnes&Noble: Lincoln and Freedom

The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Barnes&Noble: What This Cruel War Was Over

It is important to note that slavery was not unique to the United States. Many European countries had slavery before it came to the New World colonies and grew. Countries like Spain and Portugal had significant counts of slaves before 1492. But, this is no defense of the institution of slavery. The world was guilty of slavery. Slavery was a disease of humanity that spread to the colonies of the New World. It should be known that although the United States was guilty of slavery, it fought a war against itself. As a result of the Civil War, in which literally brother fought against brother and millions died, slavery ended here.

In 1619 a Dutch ship arrived at the Virginia colony and sold "20 and odd negroes" to colonists. Some of these blacks became indentured servants (people who worked for a period of years to pay for their passage to the New World, then became free) but others were slaves. Most blacks in the Virginia colony were either free or indentured servants in 1640. Slavery grew and flourished in the colonies, especially in the Southern ones. By 1700 in the Virginia colony, most blacks were in the bondage of that "peculiar institution," slavery. The South depended on slavery for its agricultural economic success.

Cotton was King in the South and the institution of slavery made it very profitable. Indeed, the South’s economy was based on slavery and cotton. One of the main contributing factors to the Civil War was that the South was willing to go to war with its own fellow countrymen in order to preserve slavery.

In 1808 the importation of slaves was made illegal in the United States of America. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852 and was very popular amongst abolitionists. In the book, slaves were described as victims of the Southern system. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a powerful factor in bringing about anti-slavery sentiment in the North. The expansion of the country westward, with new territories and states coming into being, only fueled debate and conflict over the spread and continuation of slavery. When Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, the South believed he intended to end slavery. Secession, and then the Civil War followed.

Barnes&Noble: Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

In 1860, approximately 4,500,000 white people were living in the states that had slavery. Of these 4,500,000 approximately 46,000 of them owned more than 20 slaves. Approximately 4,000,000 slaves lived in America at the start of the Civil War. On January 1, 1863 President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation that declared free the slaves in the parts of the country which were in rebellion. Only Northern victory and preservation of the Union ensured the end of slavery in the United States.

The shown map is: Distribution of Slaves in the Southern States from the book History of the United States by Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard. - White areas depict less than 25% slave distribution - Light gray areas depict 25 – 50% - Dark gray areas depict 50% and greater
Distribution of Slaves in the Southern States

Barnes&Noble: The Civil War

A few quotes by Abraham Lincoln regarding slavery: ”In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free,–honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve.” – Abraham Lincoln, from his Second Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862.   ”My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving the others alone, I would also do that.” – Abraham Lincoln, from a letter to Horace Greeley of August 22, 1862. (The Emancipation Proclamation had been written but not yet released).

”I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.”
– Abraham Lincoln, from a letter to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862.

The ugly fact is that slaves were treated as property. Slavery was a brutal, cruel, unfair, and evil thing. Slaves did not have the right to vote. Slaves could not own land. Slaves could not travel. Slave marriages were not recognized by law. Slaves were allowed to work, and work hard from the early morning light until darkness (or longer if the moonlight was bright). Slave families could be split up by the whims and desires of their owners. Slaves could be beaten and whipped to make them obey. Some slaves were killed either by their owners or by hard work. Disease killed slaves. Slaves worked on plantations and farms, in homes, on docks, in businesses, and anywhere labor was needed.

The history of slavery still haunts the United States to this day. Perhaps only with the coming of each new generation, with its hopefully new and unprejudiced rational understanding, will the scar of slavery completely fade away. T
hat will be a glorious time.

On August 20, 1862, an open letter from Horace Greeley to President Lincoln entitled; "The Prayer of the Twenty Millions" appeared in the New York Tribune. On August 22, 1862 President Abraham Lincoln’s response to Greeley was published in the New York Times. The New York Times was a competitor of Greeley’s New York Tribune newspaper and was supporting Lincoln’s policies during the Civil War. It is worth noting that at the time President Lincoln wrote this reply to Horace Greeley, he had also begun writing the Emancipation Proclamation.

Executive Mansion, Washington, August 22, 1862. Hon. Horace Greeley: Dear Sir. I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable [sic] in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right. As to the policy I “seem to be pursuing” as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

Barnes&Noble: Abraham Lincoln by James M. McPherson

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.

Yours,
A. Lincoln.

Horace Greeley was a man with influence during the Civil War. Greeley was an abolitionist and the founder of the New York Tribune. The New York Tribune was critical of President Lincoln, although Lincoln had received Greeley’s support (it came rather late) during his campaign for the presidency. Later, Greeley was nominated for president by liberal Republicans in 1872. The Democrats endorsed Greeley, but he was defeated by Ulysses S. Grant.

On August 20, 1862, the following open letter dated August 19, 1862 from Horace Greeley to President Lincoln entitled; "The Prayer of the Twenty Millions" appeared in the New York Tribune:

To ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
President of the United States

DEAR SIR: I do not intrude to tell you–for you must know already–that a great proportion of those who triumphed in your election, and of all who desire the unqualified suppression of the Rebellion now desolating our country, are sorely disappointed and deeply pained by the policy you seem to be pursuing with regard to the slaves of the Rebels. I write only to set succinctly and unmistakably before you what we require, what we think we have a right to expect, and of what we complain.

Barnes&Noble: Lincoln by Gore Vidal

I. We require of you, as the first servant of the Republic, charged especially and preeminently with this duty, that you EXECUTE THE LAWS. Most emphatically do we demand that such laws as have been recently enacted, which therefore may fairly be presumed to embody the present will and to be dictated by the present needs of the Republic, and which, after due consideration have received your personal sanction, shall by you be carried into full effect, and that you publicly and decisively instruct your subordinates that such laws exist, that they are binding on all functionaries and citizens, and that they are to be obeyed to the letter.

II. We think you are strangely and disastrously remiss in the discharge of your official and imperative duty with regard to the emancipating provisions of the new Confiscation Act. Those provisions were designed to fight Slavery with Liberty. They prescribe that men loyal to the Union, and willing to shed their blood in her behalf, shall no longer be held, with the Nations consent, in bondage to persistent, malignant traitors, who for twenty years have been plotting and for sixteen months have been fighting to divide and destroy our country. Why these traitors should be treated with tenderness by you, to the prejudice of the dearest rights of loyal men, We cannot conceive.

III. We think you are unduly influenced by the counsels, the representations, the menaces, of certain fossil politicians hailing from the Border Slave States. Knowing well that the heartily, unconditionally loyal portion of the White citizens of those States do not expect nor desire chat Slavery shall be upheld to the prejudice of the Union–(for the truth of which we appeal not only to every Republican residing in those States, but to such eminent loyalists as H. Winter Davis, Parson Brownlow, the Union Central Committee of Baltimore, and to The Nashville Union)–we ask you to consider that Slavery is everywhere the inciting cause and sustaining base of treason: the most slaveholding sections of Maryland and Delaware being this day, though under the Union flag, in full sympathy with the Rebellion, while the Free-Labor portions of Tennessee and of Texas, though writhing under the bloody heel of Treason, are unconquerably loyal to the Union. So emphatically is this the case, that a most intelligent Union banker of Baltimore recently avowed his confident belief that a majority of the present Legislature of Maryland, though elected as and still professing to be Unionists, are at heart desirous of the triumph of the Jeff. Davis conspiracy; and when asked how they could be won back to loyalty, replied "only by the complete Abolition of Slavery." It seems to us the most obvious truth, that whatever strengthens or fortifies Slavery in the Border States strengthens also Treason, and drives home the wedge intended to divide the Union. Had you from the first refused to recognize in those States, as here, any other than unconditional loyalty–that which stands for the Union, whatever may become of Slavery, those States would have been, and would be, far more helpful and less troublesome to the defenders of the Union than they have been, or now are.

IV. We think timid counsels in such a crisis calculated to prove perilous, and probably disastrous. It is the duty of a Government so wantonly, wickedly assailed by Rebellion as ours has been to oppose force to force in a defiant, dauntless spirit. It cannot afford to temporize with traitors nor with semi-traitors. It must not bribe them to behave themselves, nor make cheat fair promises in the hope of disarming their causeless hostility. Representing a brave and high-spirited people, it can afford to forfeit anything else better than its own self-respect, or their admiring confidence. For our Government even to seek, after war has been made on it, to dispel the affected apprehensions of armed traitors that their cherished privileges may be assailed by it, is to invite insult and encourage hopes of its own downfall. The rush to arms of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, is the true answer at once to the Rebel raids of John Morgan and the traitorous sophistries of Beriah Magoffin.

V. We complain that the Union cause has suffered, and is now suffering immensely, from mistaken deference to Rebel Slavery. Had you, Sir, in your Inaugural Address, unmistakably given notice that, in case the Rebellion already commenced were persisted in, and your efforts to preserve the Union and enforce the laws should be resisted by armed force, you would recognize no loyal person as rightfully held in Slavery by a traitor, we believe the Rebellion would therein have received a staggering if not fatal blow. At that moment, according to the returns of the most recent elections, the Unionists were a large majority of the voters of the Slave States. But they were composed in good part of the aged, the feeble, the wealthy, the timid–the young, the reckless, the aspiring, the adventurous, had already been largely lured by the gamblers and negro-traders, the politicians by trade and the conspirators by instinct, into the toils of Treason. Had you then proclaimed that Rebellion would strike the shackles from the slaves of every traitor, the wealthy and the cautious would have been supplied with a powerful inducement to remain loyal. As it was, every coward in the South soon became a traitor from fear; for Loyalty was perilous, while Treason seemed comparatively safe. Hence the boasted unanimity of the South–a unanimity based on Rebel terrorism and the fact that immunity and safety were found on that side, danger and probable death on ours. The Rebels from the first have been eager to confiscate, imprison, scourge and kill: we have fought wolves with the devices of sheep. The result is just what might have been expected. Tens of thousands are fighting in the Rebel ranks to-day whose, or
iginal bias and natural leanings would have led them into ours.

VI. We complain that the Confiscation Act which you approved is habitually disregarded by your Generals, and that no word of rebuke for them from you has yet reached the public ear. Fremont’s Proclamation and Hunter’s Order favoring Emancipation were promptly annulled by you; while Halleck’s No. 3, forbidding fugitives from Slavery to Rebels to come within his lines– an order as unmilitary as inhuman, and which received the hearty approbation of every traitor in America– with scores of like tendency, have never provoked even your own remonstrance. We complain that the officers of your Armies have habitually repelled rather than invited approach of slaves who would have gladly taken the risks of escaping from their Rebel masters to our camps, bringing intelligence often of inestimable value to the Union cause. We complain that those who have thus escaped to us, avowing a willingness to do for us whatever might be required, have been brutally and madly repulsed, and often surrendered to be scourged, maimed and tortured by the ruffian traitors, who pretend to own them. We complain that a large proportion of our regular Army Officers, with many of the Volunteers, evince far more solicitude to uphold Slavery than to put down the Rebellion. And finally, we complain that you, Mr. President, elected as a Republican, knowing well what an abomination Slavery is, and how emphatically it is the core and essence of this atrocious Rebellion, seem never to interfere with these atrocities, and never give a direction to your Military subordinates, which does not appear to have been conceived in the interest of Slavery rather than of Freedom.

Barenes&Noble: Tried by War by James M. McPherson

VII. Let me call your attention to the recent tragedy in New Orleans, whereof the facts are obtained entirely through Pro-Slavery channels. A considerable body of resolute, able-bodied men, held in Slavery by two Rebel sugar-planters in defiance of the Confiscation Act which you have approved, left plantations thirty miles distant and made their way to the great mart of the South-West, which they knew to be the indisputed possession of the Union forces. They made their way safely and quietly through thirty miles of Rebel territory, expecting to find freedom under the protection of our flag. Whether they had or had not heard of the passage of the Confiscation Act, they reasoned logically that we could not kill them for deserting the service of their lifelong oppressors, who had through treason become our implacable enemies. They came to us for liberty and protection, for which they were willing render their best service: they met with hostility, captivity, and murder. The barking of the base curs of Slavery in this quarter deceives no one–not even themselves. They say, indeed, that the negroes had no right to appear in New Orleans armed (with their implements of daily labor in the cane-field); but no one doubts that they would gladly have laid these down if assured that they should be free. They were set upon and maimed, captured and killed, because they sought the benefit of that act of Congress which they may not specifically have heard of, but which was none the less the law of the land which they had a clear right to the benefit of–which it was somebody’s duty to publish far and wide, in order that so many as possible should be impelled to desist from serving Rebels and the Rebellion and come over to the side of the Union, They sought their liberty in strict accordance with the law of the land–they were butchered or re-enslaved for so doing by the help of Union soldiers enlisted to fight against slaveholding Treason. It was somebody’s fault that they were so murdered–if others shall hereafter stuffer in like manner, in default of explicit and public directions to your generals that they are to recognize and obey the Confiscation Act, the world will lay the blame on you. Whether you will choose to hear it through future History and ’at the bar of God, I will not judge. I can only hope.

VIII. On the face of this wide earth, Mr. President, there is not one disinterested, determined, intelligent champion of the Union cause who does not feel that all attempts to put down the Rebellion and at the same time uphold its inciting cause are preposterous and futile–that the Rebellion, if crushed out tomorrow, would be renewed within a year if Slavery were left in full vigor–that Army officers who remain to this day devoted to Slavery can at best be but half-way loyal to the Union–and that every hour of deference to Slavery is an hour of added and deepened peril to the Union, I appeal to the testimony of your Ambassadors in Europe. It is freely at your service, not at mine. Ask them to tell you candidly whether the seeming subserviency of your policy to the slaveholding, slavery-upholding interest, is not the perplexity, the despair of statesmen of all parties, and be admonished by the general answer.

IX. I close as I began with the statement that what an immense majority of the Loyal Millions of your countrymen require of you is a frank, declared, unqualified, ungrudging execution of the laws of the land, more especially of the Confiscation Act. That Act gives freedom to the slaves of Rebels coming within our lines, or whom those lines may at any time inclose–we ask you to render it due obedience by publicly requiring all your subordinates to recognize and obey it. The rebels are everywhere using the late anti-negro riots in the North, as they have long used your officers’ treatment of negroes in the South, to convince the slaves that they have nothing to hope from a Union success-that we mean in that case to sell them into a bitter bondage to defray the cost of war. Let them impress this as a truth on the great mass of their ignorant and credulous bondsmen, and the Union will never be restored-never. We cannot conquer Ten Millions of People united in solid phalanx against us, powerfully aided by the Northern sympathizers and European allies. We must have scouts, guides, spies, cooks, teamsters, diggers and choppers from the Blacks of the South, whether we allow them to fight for us or not, or we shall be baffled and repelled. As one of the millions who would gladly have avoided this struggle at any sacrifice but that Principle and Honor, but who now feel that the triumph of the Union is dispensable not only to the existence of our country to the well being of mankind, I entreat you to render a hearty and unequivocal obedience to the law of the land.

Yours,
Horace Greeley
New York, August 19, 1862