Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address

Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address

By the time of Lincoln's inauguration, seven states had seceded from the Union. On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as the 16th president of the United States. Ironically, he received the oath of office from Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Roger B. Taney, whose decision in the Dred Scott Case was a direct cause of the crisis Lincoln now faced.

Lincoln's inaugural address was aimed at allaying Southern fears. His opening words were, "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." But he flatly rejected the right of any state to secede from the Union, and he announced that he would "hold, occupy, and possess" the property and places belonging to the federal government.

Such a threat was necessary because the rebellious states had already seized federal forts, arsenals and customhouses within their boundaries. Even with this threat, Lincoln's tone was moderate. "The government will not assail you," he addressed the South. "You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect and defend' it."

On March 4, 1861, President-elect Abraham Lincoln traveled from the Willard Hotel to the Capitol in an open carriage with defeated President James Buchanan. All points of the inaugural route were protected by cavalry and infantry with riflemen perched in windows of the Capitol. This photograph (left) captures the crowd gathered before the east portico of the unfinished Capitol to glimpse the inaugural ceremonies.

The Inaugural Address

Additional Notes:

In composing his first inaugural address, delivered March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln focused on shoring up his support in the North without further alienating the South, where he was almost universally hated or feared. For guidance and inspiration, he turned to four historic documents, all concerned directly or indirectly with states' rights: Daniel Webster's 1830 reply to Robert Y. Hayne; President Andrew Jackson's Nullification Proclamation of 1832; Henry Clay's compromise speech of 1850; and the U.S. Constitution. Lincoln's initial effort was typeset and printed at the office of the Illinois State Journal, edited and then reprinted. Lincoln sent four copies of the second strike to his closest political advisors for commentary, resulting in further changes.

The finished address avoided any mention of the Republican Party platform, which condemned all efforts to reopen the African slave trade and denied the authority of Congress or a territorial legislature to legalized slavery in the territories. The address also denied any plan on the part of the Lincoln administration to interfere with the institution of slavery in states where it existed. But to Lincoln, the Union, which he saw as older even than the Constitution, was perpetual and unbroken, and secession legally impossible.

Until the final draft, Lincoln's address had ended with a question for the South: "Shall it be peace or sword?" In the famous concluding paragraph, Lincoln, following the suggestion of Seward, moderated his tone dramatically and ended on a memorable note of conciliation:

"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stre[t]ching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

(See Bibliography below)

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Photograph: Library of Congress.
Bibliography: Fehrenbacher, Don E. Prelude to Greatness (1962; repr. 1970) and, as compiler, The Leadership of Abraham Lincoln (1970), and Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings, 2 vols. (1989).