Lincoln's Gettysburg Oration and First and Second Inaugural Addresses

Lincoln's Gettysburg oration - is one of the most famous speeches in the history of the United States of America. The President recited it on November 19, 1863, at the opening of the National Soldiers' Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Four and a half months earlier, the decisive Battle of Gettysburg had taken place, ending in the victory of the army of the North over the Confederates. Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address was delivered on Monday, March 4, 1861, as part of his oath of office for his first term as the 16th President of the United States. The speech was primarily addressed to the people of the South and was intended to summarize Lincoln's alleged policies and desires for this section, where seven states seceded from the Union and after formed the Confederate States of America. Abraham Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address on March 4, 1865. It was during his second inauguration as President of the United States. At a time when the victory over the separatists in the Civil War in the United States was in a matter of days, and slavery in all the United States was nearing its end, Lincoln was talking not about happiness, but about sadness. Some see this speech as a defense of his pragmatic approach to Reconstruction, in which he sought to avoid the harsh treatment of defeated rebels, reminding his listeners how wrong both sides were in imagining what awaited them when the war began four years earlier. However, Lincoln counterbalanced this rejection of triumphalism by recognizing the unmistakable evil of slavery. The address is inscribed with the Gettysburg address in the Lincoln Memorial.