DECEMBER 3, 1861:
President
Lincoln delivers his first Annual Message To Congress (today's State of the Union Address).
Except for George
Washington, all Eighteenth and Nineteenth century Presidents wrote State of the Union Messages.
Woodrow Wilson
was the first President since Washington to deliver an Address.
Lincoln’s
address reads in part:
“It continues to
develop that the insurrection is largely, if not exclusively, a war upon the
first principle of popular government——the rights of the people. Conclusive
evidence of this is found in the most grave and maturely considered public
documents, as well as in the general tone of the insurgents…Monarchy itself is
sometimes hinted at as a possible refuge from the power of the people.
In my present
position I could scarcely be justified were I to omit raising a warning voice
against this approach of returning despotism…It is assumed that labor is
available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody
else, owning capital, somehow…induces him to labor…Having proceeded so far, it
is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we
call slaves.
Labor is prior to and
independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never
have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital,
and deserves much the higher consideration…Men, with their families——wives,
sons, and daughters——work for themselves on their farms, in their houses, and
in their shops…[T]here is not of necessity any such thing as the free hired
laborer being fixed to that condition for life…This is the just and generous
and prosperous system which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and
consequent energy and progress and improvement of condition to all.
The struggle of today
is not altogether for today; it is for a vast future also. With a reliance on
Providence all the more firm and earnest, let us proceed in the great task
which events have devolved upon us.”
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