Thursday, October 8, 2009

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray...

Remembered as his favorite speech delivered, President Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address is breathtakingly beautiful. It was delivered on the March 4, 1865, as the war was nearing its end. Little more than a month later, our President would be assassinated.

The following excerpt are his closing lines, and my favorite.

"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."


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The only known photographs of Lincoln giving a speech were taken as he delivered his second inaugural address. Here, he stands in the center, with papers in his hand.

Posted via email from Jace's posterous

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