...fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have an oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve,...

...not. As Fort Sumter was reduced to rubble, the closing words of Lincoln's inaugural were recalled: "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen,...issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors."62 Perpetuation of a stalemate...

...long ago forgotten by most Americans. emerged, with the courage and determination to save the nation. "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen,...not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war," he said in his inaugural address. "You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government,...

...describing his own method of making decisions. He addressed Southerners: "In your hands, my dissatisfied countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail [attack] you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered...

...should not be. "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen," he proceeded to say in his Address, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered...

...adjust in the best way all our present difficulty. In YOUR hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in MINE, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail YOU. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. YOU have no oath registered...

...of calm and cheerful confidence."9 He concluded poetically, the idea Seward's, the language his own: In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen,...issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered...

...issues in his inaugural speech, delivered on the steps of the Capitol with its dome still incomplete: "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen,...issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered...

...cease fighting, the identical old questions, as to terms of intercourse, are again upon you. . . . "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen,...issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors." He closed with the lyrical...

...his January 1861 Inaugural Address, Lincoln sent this warning to the Southern slave-owning states: "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen,...and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn...