One of the great, unanswered “what ifs?” of American history is how the period immediately following the Civil War may have been different had President Abraham Lincoln lived to lead the nation into that period.

Hopes for that ended in April 1865 when an assassin’s bullet took Lincoln’s life but he had laid out his vision for the future in his second inaugural just a month before.

The Warren Mail published the address on March 11, 1865 and included a brief editorial that give us a look at how Lincoln’s words may have translated to a post-war world.

Two of Lincoln’s speeches have been ensconced on the walls of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. A speech given in Gettysburg was one. This was the other.

It was published in its entirety. To read it aloud takes little more than five minutes.

“Fellow Countryman: At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the Nation, little that is now could be presented.

The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it; all sought to avoid it. While the Inaugural Address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to serving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in this city seeking to destroy it without war – seeking to dissolve the Union and divide its effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish; and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that the interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to resist the territorial enlargement of it.

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding.

Both read the same Bible and prayed to the same God, and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men would dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not that we be not judged. THe prayers of both could not be answered – that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. Woe unto the world because of offences, for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence. If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of these offenses, which in the providence of God must needs come, but which having continued through his appointed time He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those Divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him?

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that his mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if GOd wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another draw of the sword, as was paid three thousand years ago, so, still it must be said, that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

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 finish 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 orphans; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

The local reaction?

“President Lincoln’s address to the American people, on the occasion of his second inauguration as their Chief Magistrate is brief and sententious,” the editors wrote (depending on the usage, sententious can mean, on the one hand, full of wisdom and, on the other, heavy handed).

“He does not enter at length into the political affairs of the nation, expressing his belief that the people are already well acquainted with his own view, which have repeatedly been enunciated in his Messages to Congress. He reverts to the war as the all absorbing subject of public interest, and considers that the progress of our arms is reasonably satisfactory and encouraging.

“Having high hopes for the future, he ventures no predictions makes no boast, and places his confidence in the justness of our cause and the benign favors of Providence.”

The Mail called the speech “characteristic of Mr. Lincoln.

“It exhibits afresh the kindness of his heart, and the large charity which has ever marked his actions toward those who are his personal enemies as well as the enemies of his country. Yet he is firm and will not deviate from the straight line of duty.

“The American people will appreciate the plain, manly speech of the President, and will join with him in his efforts ‘to finish the work we are in;’ ‘to find up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and orphan, and to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.'”