Published Bi-Monthly. Annual Subscription, 60 Cents. American COLONIAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL. EDITED BY ALBERT BUSHNELL HART AND EDWARD CHANNING, OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY. NO. 18. NOVEMBER, 1894. LINCOLN'S INAUGURAL AND FIRST MESSAGE TO CONGRESS. NEW YORK A. LOVELL & COMPANY. 1894 Entered at the New York Post Office as second class matter. HISTORY, AND SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE. Handbook of Dates. By HENRY CLINTON BROWN. 12 mo. Cloth. viii+182 pp. Price... ..$1 00 Arranged alphabetically and chronologically, comprising all the important events from the earliest ages to within the present decade. The Honors of the Empire State in the War of the Rebellion. By THOS. S. TOWNSEND. Large 12 mo. Cloth. 416 pp. Price...2 50 A history of the military operations of the Empire State during the Civil War. Who? When? And What? Six Centuries of Men and Events. In Chart form. Price, in Duck case, 50 cents; Leather case........ Political Economy for American Youth. By J. HARRIS PAtton. 12 mo. 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No. 18.-NOVEMBER, 1894. LINCOLN'S INAUGURAL AND FIRST MESSAGE TO CONGRESS, 1861. FEW documents have greater significance in American History than the early state papers of Abraham Lincoln. They contain passages of that vigorous and expressive English which distinguishes him; they mark his attitude in the greatest crisis of the republic; and they contain classic discussion of fundamental constitutional questions. In all of them appears the influence of Seward, his Secretary of State; but the diction of the important passages is Lincoln's own. These reprints are made from Nicolay and Hay's edition of Lincoln's works. The messages may also be found in the Congressional Globe under their dates, in newspapers of the time, and in the Executive Documents. The Inaugural is reprinted in Greeley's American Conflict and Johnston's American Orations, III., and in many other places. For discussions of the attendant circumstances see the lives of Lincoln, especially those by Nicolay and Hay, III., ch. xx.; IV., ch. xxi., and John T. Morse, chs. vii., viii. See also Von Holst, Constitutional History of the United States, VII., ch. xi.; J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States, III. (in preparation); James Schouler, History of the United States, V., ch. xxii.; Jefferson Davis, Rise and Fall of the Confederate States Government, 199–209; James Buchanan, Administration, 162–186; John C. Ropes, Story of the Civil War, I., ch. v.--Bibliography in W. E. Foster, References to Presidential Administrations, 44-48. 1861, MARCH 4.-FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. Fellow-citizens of the United States : In compliance with a custom as old as the government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly, and to take in your presence the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States to be taken by the President" before he enters on the execution of his office." I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement. Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that "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." Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them. And, more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read: Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend, and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes. I now reiterate these sentiments; and, in doing so, I only press upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the property, peace, and security of no section are to be in any wise en I add, too, dangered by the now incoming administration. that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution and the laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause-as cheerfully to one section as to another. There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions: No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due. It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the law giver is the law. All members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution to this provision as much as to any other. Το the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause "shall be delivered up," their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not with nearly equal unanimity frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath? There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by national or by State authority; but surely that difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to others by which authority it is done. And should any one in any case be content that his oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept? Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? And might it not be well at the same time to provide by law for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that "the citizen of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States?" |