fecting the whole people is to be irre- fighting, the identical old questions, as to vocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigations between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their governwent into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes. One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive - slave clause of the Constitution, and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave-trade, are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured; and it would be worse, in both cases; after the separation of the sections than before. The foreign slave-trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived, without restriction, in one section, while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the others. terms of intercourse, are again upon you. This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. I cannot be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the national Constitution amended. While I make no recommendation of amendment, I fully recognize the rightful authority of the people over the whole subject to be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself, and I should, under existing circumstances, favor, rather than oppose, a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act upon it. I will venture to add that to me the convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendment to originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions originated by others, not especially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution—which amendment, however, I have not seen-has passed Congress, to the effect that the federal government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments, so far as to say that, holding such a provision now to be implied constitutional law, I have no objections to its being made express and irrevocable. Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face; and intercourse, either amiable or hostile, must continue between them. It is impossible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before. Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws among friends? Sup- Why should there not be a patient conpose you go to war, you cannot fight fidence in the ultimate justice of the peoalways, and when after much loss on both pie? Is there any better or equal hope sides, and no gain on either, you cease in the world? In our present differences, The chief magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the States. The people themselves can do this also if they choose, but the executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present government as it came to his hands, and to transmit it, unimpaired by him, to his successor. is either party without faith of being stretching from every battle-field and in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of patriot grave to every living heart and Nations, with His eternal truth and jus- hearthstone, all over this broad land, will tice, be on your side of the North, or yet swell the chorus of the Union, when on yours of the South, that truth and that again touched, as surely they will be, by justice will surely prevail, by the judg- the better angels of our nature. ment of this great tribunal of the Ameri- President Lincoln's Second Inaugural can people. Speech: Fellow-countrymen,-At this second ap By the frame of the government under which we live, the same people have wisely given their public servants but pearing to take the oath of the Presilittle power for mischief, and have, with dential office, there is less occasion for equal wisdom, provided for the return an extended address than there was at of that little to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years. My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there is still no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty. In your hands, my dissatisfied fellowcountrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. 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. 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, first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed very fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avoid it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it with war-seeking to dissolve the Union and divide the effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would aecept war rather than let it perish; and the war came. One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen. perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union by war, while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has born in Hingham, Mass., Jan. 24, 1733; already attained. Neither anticipated engaged in farming; was a firm and active that the cause of the conflict might cease patriot; and was a major-general of miliwhen, or even before, the conflict itself tia when the Revolutionary War broke should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayer of both could not be answered. That of BENJAMIM LINCOLN. neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offences, for it must needs be that offences come, but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offence cameshall we discern there any departure from out. In June, 1776, he commanded an exthose divine attributes which the believ- pedition that cleared Boston Harbor of ers in a living God always ascribe to British vessels, and in February, 1777, Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do was appointed a major-general in the Conwe pray, that this mighty scourge of war tinental army. His services were varied may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills and important all through the war, and at that it continue until all the wealth piled the surrender of Yorktown he received by the bondsman's 250 years of unrequit- the sword of the defeated Cornwallis. ed toil shall be sunk, and until every drop From that time (October, 1781) until of blood drawn with the lash shall be 1784 he was Secretary of War, and repaid by another drawn with the sword; ceived a vote of thanks from Congress on as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it his retirement. In 1787 he commanded must be said, that the judgments of the troops which suppressed Shays's inthe Lord are true and righteous al- surrection. In that year he was chosen together." With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans: to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. See also BANCROFT, GEORGE; EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATIONS; GETTYSBURG. Lincoln, BENJAMIN, military officer; lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts, and from 1789 to 1808 he was collector of the port of Boston. He was fond of literary and scientific pursuits. He died in Hingham, May 9, 1810. Lincoln, LEVI, statesman; born in Hingham, Mass., May 15, 1749; graduated at Harvard in 1772; member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1796 and a State Senator in 1797. In 1800 he was elected to Congress and served until Feb. 6, 1801, when he was appointed Attorney-General of the United States, and for a short period was acting |