Then, as if to avert ill feeling if possible:
"I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union, that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself."
Then, with careful adherence to the mildest terms possible—could anything be a more peaceful assertion of national right than the simple "hold, occupy and possess"?—he says what the nation will do:
"In doing this there need be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere."
The remainder of the Inaugural is just such a kindly, homely, earnest, sincere, straight-forward appeal to the South, as he might have made in a country court-house in Illinois, "taking off his coat, leaning upon the rail of the jury box, and singling out a leading juryman and addressing him in a conversational tone." Having stated the case, and once more barely repeated that it was "his duty to administer the present government as it came to his hands, and to transmit it unimpaired by him to his successor," he then quietly but powerfully appeals to his own two life-long trusts, God Almighty, and the free people of America. He asks:
"Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present differences, is either party without faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of nations, with his eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail, by the judgment of the great tribunal of the American people."
And the final paragraphs are sad and heavy with his unutterable longings and yearnings for peace; so that the words, plain and simple as they are, are full of deep and melancholy music:
"You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one, to 'preserve, protect and defend' it.
I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic cord of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
As the war went on, the same unwavering decision, the same caution and kindness marked the whole action of the Executive. Especially were these traits exhibited in his dealings with the main question at issue, that of slavery.