that the object of the war being to restore and maintain the blessings of peace and good government, I desire you to help, and not hinder, every advance in that direction.

Of your military necessities you must judge and execute, but please do so in the spirit and with the purpose above indicated.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

[From the Daily National Intelligencer, February 22, 1865.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, February 21, 1865.

The Department buildings will be illuminated on the night of Washington's birthday, in honor of the recent triumphs of the Union.

By order of the President:

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN: 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.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war-seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the

war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed

no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

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.

MARCH 4, 1865.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

WASHINGTON, D. C., March 8, 1865.

To the Senate of the United States:

The fourth section of the law of 16th January, 1857, provides that reserved officers may be promoted on the reserved list, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and under this authority various officers of the Navy have been promoted one grade from time to time.

I therefore nominate Commander John J. Young, now on the reserved

list, to be a captain in the Navy on the reserved list from the 12th August, 1854, the date when he was entitled to his regular promotion had he not been overslaughed. It is due to this officer to state that he was passed over in consequence of physical disability, this disability having occurred in the discharge of his duties; and prior to his misfortune he bore the reputation of an efficient and correct officer, and subsequently has evinced a willingness to perform whatever duties were assigned him. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

To the Senate of the United States:

WASHINGTON, March 8, 1865.

In answer to the Senate's resolution of the 6th instant, requesting the return of a certain joint resolution,* I transmit a report from the Secretary of State.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

PROCLAMATIONS.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas the twenty-first section of the act of Congress approved on the 3d instant, entitled "An act to amend the several acts heretofore passed to provide for the enrolling and calling out the national forces and for other purposes," requires "that, in addition to the other lawful penalties of the crime of desertion from the military or naval service, all persons who have deserted the military or naval service of the United States who shall not return to said service or report themselves to a provostmarshal within sixty days after the proclamation hereinafter mentioned shall be deemed and taken to have voluntarily relinquished and forfeited their rights of citizenship and their rights to become citizens, and such deserters shall be forever incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under the United States or of exercising any rights of citizens thereof; and all persons who shall hereafter desert the military or naval service, and all persons who, being duly enrolled, shall depart the jurisdiction of the district in which he is enrolled or go beyond the limits of the United States with intent to avoid any draft into the military or naval service duly ordered, shall be liable to the penalties of this section. And the President is hereby authorized and required, forthwith on the passage of this act, to issue his proclamation setting forth the provisions of this section, in which proclamation the President is requested to notify all

* Entitled "Joint resolution in relation to certain railroads."

Executive Mansion

Washington, Nor 21,1864

To Mrs Bixby, Boston, Mass,

Dear Madam.

I have been shown in the files

the War Department

a statement of the Adjutant

General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously

the

field of battle word of

any

I feel how weak and fruitless must be mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. overwhelming. But I cannot refrain be found

from tendering you

the Consolation that

may

in the thanks of the republic they died to save

pray

Ꮽ

the anguish

you only

the cherished

Father may assuage bereavement, and leave

that

our

Heavenly

of your

memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride

that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice the altar of freedom

upon

Yours very sincerely and respectfully.

ALincoln.

FACSIMILE-PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S LETTER TO MRS. BIXBY

THE BIXBY LETTER.

Than the famous letter of Abraham Lincoln to Mrs. Bixby, nothing reveals better Lincoln's tenderness, his sadness at the sacrifices demanded by the war, his adamantine love of the Union, and his ever-throbbing humaneness. The simple but pulsating words with which he commiserated the martyred widow who had given all her sons over to death that the Union might be undivided have made the "Bixby Letter" a classic which is fittingly placed by the side of the immortal Gettysburg address.