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Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address
March 4, 1861
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 endangered by the now incoming administration. I add,
too, 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 lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear
their support to the whole Constitution—to this provision as much as to
any other. To 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?”
I take the official oath today with no mental reservations, and with no
purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical
rules. And while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of
Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much
safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to and
abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of
them, trusting to find impunity in having them held to be
unConstitutional.
It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President
under our national Constitution. During that period fifteen different
and greatly distinguished citizens have, in succession, administered
the executive branch of the government. They have conducted it through
many perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with all this scope
of precedent, I now enter upon the same task for the brief
Constitutional term of four years under great and peculiar difficulty.