LINCOLN'S SECOND INAUGURATION.
It was known, by a dispatch received at the Capitol at midnight, on the 3d of March, 1865, that Lee had sought an interview with Grant, to arrange terms of surrender. On the next day Lincoln again stood on the eastern colonnade of the Capitol, again to swear fidelity to the Republic, her Constitution, and laws; but, how changed the scene from his first inauguration. No traitors now occupied high places under the Government. Crowds of citizens and soldiers who would have died for their beloved Chief Magistrate now thronged the area. Liberty loyalty, and victory had crowned the eagles of our armies. No conspirators were now mingling in the crowd, unless perchance the assassin Booth might have been lurking there. Many patriots and statesmen were in their graves. Douglas was dead, and Ellsworth, and Baker, and McPherson, and Reynolds, and Wadsworth, and a host of martyrs, had given their lives that liberty and the Republic might triumph. It was a very touching spectacle to see the long lines of invalid and wounded soldiers, from the great hospitals about Washington, some on crutches, some who had lost an arm, many pale from unhealed wounds, who gathered to witness the scene. As Lincoln ascended the platform, and his tall form, towering above all his associates, was recognized, cheers and shouts of welcome filled the air, and not until he raised his arm motioning for silence, could the acclamations be hushed. He paused a moment, looked over the scene, and still hesitated. What thronging memories passed through his mind! Here, four years before, he had stood pleading, oh, how earnestly, for peace. But, even while he pleaded, the rebels took up the sword, and he was forced to "accept war."
Now four long, bloody, weary years of devastating war had passed, and those who made the war were everywhere discomfited, and being overthrown. That barbarous institution which had caused the war, had been destroyed, and the dawn of peace already brightened the sky. Such the scene, and such the circumstances under which Lincoln pronounced his second Inaugural, a speech which has no parallel since Christ's Sermon on the Mount.
Who shall say that I am irreverent when I declare, that the passage, "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away! yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsmen's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and every drop of blood drawn by the lash, shall be paid by another drawn by the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so it must be said now, that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether," could only have been inspired by that Holy Book, which daily he read, and from which he ever sought guidance?
Where, but from the teachings of Christ, could he have learned that charity in which he so unconsciously described his own moral nature, "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who hath borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans, to do all which may achieve a just and lasting peace, among ourselves and among all nations."