Category - Speeches by Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln 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...

Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln

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...

“House Divided” by Abraham Lincoln

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention. If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated, with...

Cooper Union Address by Abraham Lincoln

Mr. President and fellow citizens of New York: – The facts with which I shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there anything new in the general use I shall make of them. If there shall be any novelty, it will be in the...

The Gettysburg Address

On November 19, 1863 President Lincoln attended a dedication of a military cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In that battlefield the Union defeated the Confederates in one of the most decisive battles of the war considered a turning point in the...

Last Speech by Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln last public address was given on April 11, 1865 outside of the White House. Two days earlier General Ulysses Grant had defeated the Confederate Army under General Lee in Appomattox.

Speech on the Kansas Nebraska Act at Peoria, Illinois, 1854

October 16, 1854 “… Preceding the Presidential election of 1852, each of the great political parties, Democrats and Whigs, met in convention, and adopted resolutions endorsing the compromise of ’50; as a ‘finality’ a final settlement, so...