Chapter 134: Lincoln’s 1st Inaugural Address pleads for unity.

A crowd of some 30,000 gather at the East Portico of the Capitol to hear the new President’s speech. He goes straight at the issue of slavery and vows not to interfere where it already exists and to uphold the Fugitive Slave law. But then warns that the Union is “perpetual” and any attempt to leave will be treated as Insurrection and opposed, but not necessarily by violence.

After wishing for calm and more time for dialogue, he closes with his soaring emotional plea:

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.