What did Abraham Lincoln say in his inaugural address?

Answer 1

With malice toward 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 orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Answer 2

Because Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address was made at the close of the Civil War, his speech addressed war related issues. First off, he addressed that the Confederate States would be accepted back into the United States as equals and does not blame the South specifically in order to realign the bond between the two sides. He notes that secession was not the goal and no side meant for a schism to occur. Actually, Lincoln lays the blame on both sides. He believes that slavery was the main cause of the war and both the North and South were At Fault for letting slavery continue and for it letting it cause a war. The Civil War was only the first struggle, the next one would be putting the nation back together

An Alternate Answer:

Abraham Lincoln's second Inaugural Address was delivered when it was apparent that the Union would win the war, and just 5 weeks before Robert Lee surrendered to General Grant, which marked the beginning of the end of the Civil War.

President Lincoln's second Inaugural Address did not offer an acknowledgement of victory for North, nor did it pardon South for the sin of slavery. His address states specifically that Slavery was the main cause of the was, for which the whole country was guilty of the cause. (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. )

The most moving portion of the address, is the very last statement, which pleads for reconciliation and unity from the nation, as a whole. (With malice toward 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 orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. )

Lincoln's Second Inaugural address does not address "Reconstruction" of the South into the Union, nor does it address any prediction of impending issues of the emancipation of slavery; Lincoln simply suggests to the entire nation to look to God, and the ways of God, in finding answers, and coming to a peaceful resolve.

Answer 3

He would not interfere with slavery in the states where it already existed.