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| Monday March 4, 1861 |
Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated as the 16th President of the
United States. No president before or after will face as great a
crisis as he does. He is inaugurated at 1:00 PM and give his first
inaugural address. The final words are some of the greatest
words ever given in an inauguration.
" I am loathe to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must
not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not
break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory,
stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living
heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the
chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by
the better angels of our nature."