Abraham Lincoln First Inaugural Address (excerpt)
Monday, March 4, 1861

“...I am loath 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 battlefield 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.”

Harper's Weekly, 1865. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division. Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-2578

Back to Southern Man