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.
From: U. S. Government's Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States: from George Washington 1789 to George Bush 1989