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Quotation from Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln
“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.”
Second Inaugural Address, Paragraph 2 (Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents (GPO, 1989), Avalon Project)
Lincoln's compressed account of how the war began in 1861, ending in four plain words.
Citation: "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." — Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, Paragraph 2 (Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents (GPO, 1989), Avalon Project). (id lincoln-second-inaugural-address-q1)
Portrait: Abraham Lincoln giving his second Inaugural Address (4 March 1865), Alexander Gardner, Public domain.
