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The Executive power itself would be greatly diminished by the cessation of actual war. Pardons and remissions of forfeiture, however, would still be within Executive control. In what spirit and temper this control would be exercised, can be fairly judged of by the past. A year ago general pardon and amnesty, upon specified terms, were offered to all except certain designated classes, and it was at the same time made known that the excepted classes were still within contemplation of special clemency. During the year many availed themselves of the general provision, and many more would, only that the signs of bad faith in some led to such precautionary measures as rendered the practical process less easy and certain. During the same time, also, special pardons have been granted to individuals of excepted classes, and no voluntary application has been denied.

Thus practically the door has been for a full year open to all, except such as were not in condition to make free choice; that is, such as were in custody or under constraint. It is still so open to all, but the time may come, probably will come, when public duty shall demand that it be closed, and that in lieu, more vigorous measures than heretofore shall be adopted.

In presenting the abandonment of armed resistance to the national authority on the part of the insurgents, as the only indispensable condition to ending the war on the part of the Government, I retract nothing heretofore said as to slavery. I repeat the declaration made a year ago, and that while I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the Emancipation Proclamation. Nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation, or by any of the acts of Congress. If the people should, by whatever mode or means, make it an Executive duty to reënslave such persons, another, and not I, must be their instrument to perform it.

In stating a single condition of peace, I mean simply to say that the war will cease on the part of the Government whenever it shall have ceased on the part of those who began it.

(Signed)

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

At the Presidential election of 1864, Mr. Lincoln was reëlected by a majority so large and so widely diffused as to be the most remarkable approval of the course of any administration since the reëlection of Mr. Jefferson in 1801. Even the reëlection of General Jackson was not equal to it in this respect. On the 4th of March, 1865, Mr. Lincoln took his second oath of office, and delivered the following Inaugural Address; the solemnity, the piety, and the almost tender loving-kindness of which was at once remarked throughout this country and Europe.

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 very 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 avoid it. While the ianugural address was being delivered 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 the 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 fet 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 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 these 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 soon 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 with 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 orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

NEGROES IN THE REBEL ARMIES.

On the 19th of March, 1865, there was a large gathering of people in front of the National Hotel at Washington, on occasion of the presentation of a rebel flag, captured at Anderson by the 140th Indiana regiment. After a speech by Governor Morton, of Indiana, the President addressed the assembly substantially as follows, directing his remarks chiefly to the subject of the then recently proposed arming of their negroes by the rebels. Mr. Lincoln's speech on this occasion was a striking exhibition of that combination of humor and sagacity which was one of the characteristic traits of his mind, and which enabled him to "put things" in such a clear, convincing, and attractive way before the public:

Fellow-citizens-It will be but a very few words that I shall undertake to say. I was born in Kentucky, raised in Indiana, and lived in Illinois, [laughter,] and now I am here, where it is my business to care equally for the good people of all the States. I am glad to see an Indiana regiment on this day able to present the captured flag to the Governor of Indiana. I am not disposed in saying this to make a distinction between the States, for all have done equally well. There are but few views or aspects of this great war upon which I have not said or written something whereby my own opinions might be known. But there is one-the recent attempt of our erring brethren, as they are sometimes called, to employ the negro to fight for them. I have neither written or made a speech on that subject, because that was their business, not mine; and if I had a wish upon the subject, I had not the power to introduce it or make it effective.

The great question with them was whether the negro, being put into the army, will fight for them. I do not know, and therefore cannot decide. They ought to know better than I. I have, in my lifetime, heard many arguments why the negroes ought to be slaves; but if they fight for those who keep them in slavery, it will be a better argument than any I have yet heard. [Laughter and applause.] He who will fight for that ought to be a slave. [Applause.] They have concluded, at last, to take one out of four of the slaves, and put them in the army; and that one out of the four who will fight to keep the others in slavery ought to be a slave himself, unless he is killed in a fight. [Applause.] While I have often said that all men ought to be free, yet I would allow those colored persons to be slaves who want to be; and next to them those white people who argue in favor of making other people slaves. [Applause.] I am in favor of giving an appointment to such white men to try it on for these slaves. I will say one thing in regard to the negroes being employed to fight for them. I do know he cannot fight and stay at home and make bread too. And as one is about as important as the other to them, I don't care which they do. I am rather in favor of having them try them as soldiers. They lack one vote of doing that, and I wish I could send my vote over the river, so that I might cast it in favor of allowing the negro to fight. [Applause.] But they cannot fight and work both. We must now see the bottom of the enemy's resources. They will stand out as long as they can, and if the negro will fight for them, they must allow him to fight. They have drawn upon their last branch of resources, and we can now see the bottom. I am glad to see the end so near at hand. [Applause.] I have said now more than I intended, and will therefore bid you good bye.

GENERAL GRANT'S CROWNING VICTORY-THE QUESTION

OF REORGANIZATION.

At last came the inevitable conclusion-Grant's crowning victory-the capture of Richmond, the surrender of General Lee's army at Appomattox Court House, and the

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