The Text of Lincoln's
Second Inaugural Address

Attached is the brief text to President Lincoln’s very eloquent second inaugural address, that was delivered during the closing weeks of the Civil War. It appears on the following page with the fine words of Lincoln scholar Roy Edgar Appleman who wrote:

“This brief address, whose closing paragraphs are rich with the flavor and cadences of the Old Testament, is assurance of the speaker’s immortality in the minds of man as long as the language is spoken and read. Lord Curzon said that Lincoln’s second Inaugural, his ‘Gettysbrg Address’, and William Pitt’s toast after the Battle of Trafalgar constitute the three supreme examples of eloquence in the English language.”

Historian Henry Steele Commager ranked Lincoln at number 11 insofar as his impact on the cultural mindset of the United States…