Second Inaugural Address

(by Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States) Second Inaugural Address. Delivered at Washington, D. C. March 4, 1865. 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 …

The Gettysburg Address

(by Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States) Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war. . .testing whether that nation, or any nation …

Thanksgiving Proclamation

Washington, D.C. October 3, 1863 By the President of the United States of America. A Proclamation. The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they …

The Emancipation Proclamation

(by Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States) A Transcription By the President of the United States of America: A Proclamation. Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, …

Cooper Union Speech

(by Abraham Lincoln) In October 1859, Lincoln accepted an invitation to lecture at Henry Ward Beecher's church in Brooklyn, New York, and chose a political topic which required months of painstaking research. His law partner, William Herndon, observed, "No former effort in the line of speech-making had cost Lincoln so much time and thought as …

House Divided Speech

(by Abraham Lincoln) Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention. If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it.We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation.Under the operation of that policy, that …

The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions

(by Abraham Lincoln) As one of Abraham Lincoln's earliest published speeches, this address has been much scrutinized and debated by historians, who see broad implications for his later public policies. Lincoln was 28 years old at the time he gave this speech and had recently moved from a struggling pioneer village to Springfield, Illinois. William …