we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men,
living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated
it far above our poor power to add or detract.
The world will little note, nor long remember, what
we say here, but it can never forget what they did
here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be
dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who
fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great
task remaining before us;—that from these
honored dead, we take increased devotion to that cause
for which they gave the last full measure of devotion;—that
we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have
died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have
a new birth of freedom, and that government of the
people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish
from the earth.”
[52] N. and H. vii. 389.
[53] Arnold, Lincoln, 328. This writer
gives a very vivid description of the delivery of
the speech, derived in part from Governor Dennison,
afterward the postmaster-general, who was present on
the occasion.
[54] Mr. Arnold says that in an unconscious and absorbed
manner, Mr. Lincoln “adjusted his spectacles”
and read his address.
RECONSTRUCTION
In his inaugural address President Lincoln said:
“The union of these States is perpetual....
No State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get
out of the Union; resolves and ordinances to that effect
are legally void.” In these words was imbedded
a principle which later on he showed his willingness
to pursue to its logical conclusions concerning the
reconstruction of the body politic. If no State,
by seceding, had got itself out of the Union, there
was difficulty in maintaining that those citizens
of a seceding State, who had not disqualified themselves
by acts of treason, were not still lawfully entitled
to conduct the public business and to hold the usual
elections for national and state officials, so soon
as the removal of hostile force should render it physically
possible for them to do so. Upon the basis of
this principle, the resumption by such citizens of
a right which had never been lost, but only temporarily
interfered with by lawless violence, could reasonably
be delayed by the national government only until the
loyal voters should be sufficient in number to relieve
the elections from the objection of being colorable
and unreal. This philosophy of “reconstruction”
seemed to Mr. Lincoln to conform with law and good
sense, and he was forward in meeting, promoting, almost
even in creating opportunities to apply it. From
the beginning of the war he had been of opinion that
the framework of a state government, though it might
be scarcely more than a skeleton, was worth preservation.
It held at least the seed of life. So after West
