LAD #19: Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

To start off his second inaugural Lincoln declares that his speech will be short and concise, contrary to his first as the issues of that day constituted an outline of the path he was going to take the nation. The events currently consuming the nation have made his job and the subsequent outline clear and vivid to the American people. He offers no prediction for the outcome of the war. He states that at the time of his first inaugural, all sought to avoid war and the goal was to preserve the Union, but some sought to dissolve this Union without from within the government. Eventually, some sought to dissolve the Union at the cost of war (South) and the others sought to save the Union through war (North). The issue of the minority slaves was the South's constitution for war, while the Republicans sought only to restrict its "territorial enlargement". They are all Americans of the same God, yet each invokes God's will against the others. Yet, if slavery is the issue God has requested to be revoked and he has sent this war upon those who are to have it pulled form their grasp and if he continues this war until the United States ceases to exist, then it shall be. He concludes by saying, let us make God's will different and finish what we have started, fix our wounds, and welcome back the great Union which was torn from the Earth.