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. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war–seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

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. 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 new could be presented. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Is the Hitchens Principle applicable? Does the speech’s religiosity really poison it? Judge for yourself:Īt 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. Hitchens put it, I confess that I like the poison.Ībraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address is a profoundly religious document (virtually inconceivable today). If this is an example of how “religion poisons everything,” as the late Mr. Maybe Barcelona, Spain, and the world would be better off without it. Of course, if Christopher Hitchens’s declaration that “religion poisons everything” be taken as literally true, one must also conclude that La Sagrada Familia is toxic.

Religion poisons everything book