Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history.  We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves.  No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us.  The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.  We say we are for the Union.  The world will not forget that we say this.  We know how to save the Union.  The world knows we do know how to save it.  We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility.  In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free—­honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve.  We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth.  Other means may succeed; this could not fail.  The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just—­a way which if followed the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless.

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State of the Union Address
Abraham Lincoln
December 8, 1863

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives: 

Another year of health and of sufficiently abundant harvests has passed.  For these, and especially for the improved condition of our national affairs, our renewed and profoundest gratitude to God is due.

We remain in peace and friendship with foreign powers.

The efforts of disloyal citizens of the United States to involve us in foreign wars to aid an inexcusable insurrection have been unavailing.  Her Britannic Majesty’s Government, as was justly expected, have exercised their authority to prevent the departure of new hostile expeditions from British ports.  The Emperor of France has by a like proceeding promptly vindicated the neutrality which he proclaimed at the beginning of the contest.  Questions of great intricacy and importance have arisen out of the blockade and other belligerent operations between the Government and several of the maritime powers, but they have been discussed and, as far as was possible, accommodated in a spirit of frankness, justice, and mutual good will.  It is especially gratifying that our prize courts, by the impartiality of their adjudications, have commanded the respect and confidence of maritime powers.

The supplemental treaty between the United States and Great Britain for the suppression of the African slave trade, made on the 17th day of February last, has been duly ratified and carried into execution.  It is believed that so far as American ports and American citizens are concerned that inhuman and odious traffic has been brought to an end.

I shall submit for the consideration of the Senate a convention for the adjustment of possessory claims in Washington Territory arising out of the treaty of the 15th June, 1846, between the United States and Great Britain, and which have been the source of some disquiet among the citizens of that now rapidly improving part of the country.

A novel and important question, involving the extent of the maritime jurisdiction of Spain in the waters which surround the island of Cuba, has been debated without reaching an agreement, and it is proposed in an amicable spirit to refer it to the arbitrament of a friendly power.  A convention for that purpose will be submitted to the Senate.