First Inaugural Address | Page 2

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Lincoln's First Inaugural Address March 4, 1861

Fellow citizens of the United States: in compliance with a custom as
old as the government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly
and to take, in your presence, the oath prescribed by the Constitution of
the United States, to be taken by the President "before he enters on the
execution of his office."
I do not consider it necessary, at present, for me to discuss those
matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety, or
excitement.
Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States

that by the accession of a Republican administration their property and
their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never
been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most
ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open
to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of
him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches
when I declare that "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to
interfere with the institution of slavery where it exists. I believe I have
no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." Those who
nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made
this and many similar declarations, and had never recanted them. And,
more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a
law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I
now read:
"Resolved: that the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States,
and especially the right of each State to order and control its own
domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is
essential to