Lincoln, by deft touches which reveal a literary taste beyond that of any statesman of his time, indeed beyond that which he himself had yet exhibited, transformed this passage into his peroration. His emendations were largely in the way of excision of unnecessary phrases, resolution of sentences broken in construction [top] into several shorter, more direct ones, and change of general and vague terms in rhetorical figure to concrete and picturesque words. He wrote:
"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 chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth-stone 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."
More than the persuasive argument and gentle yet determined spirit of the address, it was the chaste beauty and tender feeling of these closing words which convinced the people that Lincoln measured up to the high mental and moral stature demanded of one who was to be their leader through the most critical period that had arisen in the life of the nation.
The second inaugural address, coming so shortly before the President's death, formed unintentionally his farewell address. It has the spirit and tone of prophecy. The Bible, in thought and expression, was its inspiration. The first two of its three paragraphs ring like a chapter from Isaiah, chief of the poet seers of old. The concluding paragraph is an apostolic benediction such as Paul or John might have delivered.
"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations."