Lincoln Sources
Lincoln Sources
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 perceptible 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.
Yours,
A. Lincoln
Emancipation Proclamation
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation.
"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand
eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State
or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion
against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free;
and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military
and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of
such persons…
…And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable
condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to
garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of
all sorts in said service.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the
United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our
Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence
of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any
nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great
battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final
resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is
altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
Fellow-Countrymen:
expiration – At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an
end 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
engrosses – takes declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which
up all of 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
impending – public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope
coming soon for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.
avert - avoid 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
colored – African- delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in
American 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
perpetuate – make nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.
last
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but
insurgents – localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All
rebelling against knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend
the government 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
magnitude – party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither
greatness 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
duration – length same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem
of time 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
invokes – calls be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe
forth 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,
providence – divine in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time,
direction 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
discern – recognize 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
ascribe- see as until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be
belonging 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
scourge – great true and righteous altogether."
suffering
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the
bond-man – slave 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
unrequited – cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
unpaid
malice - a desire
to hurt others