Abraham Lincoln “Second Annual Message to Congress” (December 1, 1862) Source: Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29503.
Having announced the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862, Lincoln followed with this message to Congress, or State of the Union message, a long document in which he called for compensated emancipation of slaves and the use of “colonization” to return freed slaves to Africa.
From the closing paragraph of Lincoln’s Second Annual Message to Congress (“State of the Union”)
Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free–honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just–a way which if followed the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless.
