'
"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 address ended, the Chief Justice arose, and the listeners
who, for the second time, heard Abraham Lincoln repeat the solemn
words of his oath of office, went from the impressive scene to
their several homes in thankfulness and confidence that the
destiny of the nation was in safe keeping.
Nothing would have amazed Mr. Lincoln more than to hear himself
called a man of letters; and yet it would be hard to find in all
literature anything to excel the brevity and beauty of his
address at Gettysburg or the lofty grandeur of this Second
Inaugural. In Europe his style has been called a model for the
study and imitation of princes, while in our own country many of
his phrases have already passed into the daily speech of mankind.
His gift of putting things simply and clearly was partly the
habit of his own clear mind, and partly the result of the
training he gave himself in days of boyish poverty, when paper
and ink were luxuries almost beyond his reach, and the words he
wished to set down must be the best words, and the clearest and
shortest to express the ideas he had in view.
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