Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address

Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address is dated March 4, 1861. The speaker says that, in compliance with a custom as old as the government itself, he appears briefly to take the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States. The speaker says that apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that a Republican administration will endanger their property and their peace, and that there has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension.

The speaker says he quotes from one of those speeches in declaring that he has no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. A majority that deprived a minority of any clearly written Constitutional right by the mere force of numbers might, the speaker says, justify revolution in a moral point of view. Even if those who are dissatisfied held the right side in the dispute, the speaker says there still is no single good reason for precipitate action.