title: Malice Toward None: Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address
author:  Jack E. Levin 
description: "A remarkable line-by-line examination of a Lincoln speech central to American values...with <i>Malice Toward None, </i>Jack Levin is giving the gift of an educational moment to Americans of all ages." (American Spectator)
zlib_text: * * *
  
  # Lincoln's First 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 be taken by the President "before he enters on the execution of his
  office."
  
  I do not consider it necessary, at present, for me to discuss those matters of
  administration about which there is no special anxiety, or excitement.
  
  Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by
  the accession of a Republican administration their property and their peace
  and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any
  reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the
  contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is
  found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do
  but quote from on