Beschreibung:

LINCOLN, ABRAHAM, President . Autograph manuscript signed ("Abraham Lincoln"), THE CONCLUDING PARAGRAPH OF HIS SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS ("With malice toward none; with charity for all..." etc.), written in the autograph album of Caroline R. Wright (d.1896), friend of Mary Lincoln, wife of Governor Joseph A. Wright of Indiana (1810-1867), the album also signed by Vice-President Andrew Johnson and 65 others including cabinet members, Senators and Congressmen, n.p. [Washington, D.C.], n.d. [probably written in March, sometime after Lincoln's Inauguration on 4 March 1865]. One page, 219 x 140mm. (8 5/8 x 5 3/8 in.), consisting of thirteen lines and signature in black ink, on page [5] of the album. THE ALBUM: 170 blank pages of good-quality bond paper, gold-printed titlepage reading : "AUTOGRAPHS, J.B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia" ( the glossy coating of that page oxidized), bound in purple-black morocco leather, covers with gilt and blind-tooled borders, in the center of each cover the gilt-blocked legend "AUTOGRAPHS" in decorative lettering, spine richly gilt with stars, dots and small floral tools in four compartments, gilt-lettered in one, page edges gilt, enclosed in a plain paper wrapper (possibly original) with stamp on inside : "From Arnold Constable & Co., Broadway & 19th St." ( perhaps the store where Caroline Wright acquired the album?), the leather slightly rubbed at top and base of spine, but otherwise in remarkably fine condition. ONE OF LINCOLN'S MOST ELOQUENT AND MOVING UTTERANCES. A MONTH BEFORE HIS DEATH HE CALLS FOR RECONCILIATION AFTER FOUR YEARS OF WAR: THE MOST FAMOUS PASSAGE OF ANY PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURAL ADDRESS '"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 fin- ish 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 a lasting peace am- ong ourselves, and with all na- tions' ÿ Abraham Lincoln." By the summer of 1864, as casualty lists lengthened and the Union armies seemed bogged down in the field, it appeared certain to most political observers, and to ÿPresident Lincoln himself, that he had no chance of being re-elected to a second term. The war to preserve the Union seemed unwinnable, a hellish vortex of destruction which consumed men and materiel in staggering numbers, all to no effect. The Democratic Party, sensing the profound war weariness of the northern electorate, drafted a platform calling for peace "at the earliest possible moment," and talk of compromise on the issue of slavery and even on the question of secession itself was rampant. By November though, the situation had changed drastically. Sherman's armies had battered their way through the Confederate lines to take Atlanta, the symbolic heart of the South. Lincoln made astute changes in his cabinet and worked diligently to rally his support. On election day, November 8, with the votes of furloughed soldiers swelling the returns, Lincoln and his party won a sweeping victory. By the time of his Inauguration, four months later, it was apparent that the Confederacy's defenses were crumbling rapidly. The end of the war was, at long last, in sight. And it was with a profound sense of thankfulness, tempered with an awareness of the horrific human suffering of the war, plus a humbling sense of how nearly he and his cause had lost the struggle, that Lincoln composed his Second Inaugural Address, delivered from the portico of the Capitol shortly after noon on 4 March 1865. This address "ranks in its eloquence and its evocation of the meaning of this war with the Gettysburg Address" (James McPherson, Lincoln and the Second American Revolution , 1991, p.186.) In the address, Lincoln describes the root causes of the war, and admits that "Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has