• Date: 1869
  • Sculptor: Henry Kirke Brown
  • Medium & size: Bronze, figure 8.5 feet tall, pedestal 10.5 feet tall
  • Location: Prospect Park near Wollman Rink

Henry Kirke Brown, Abraham Lincoln, 1869. Prospect Park, Brooklyn. Photo copyright © 2019 Dianne L. Durante

March 4, 1864: Lincoln’s Second Inaugural

The beginning:

 At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

And the end:

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.

The full text, with a photo of Lincoln delivering the speech (with John Wilkes Booth lurking in the background!) are here.

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