Lincoln’s Inaugural Speech Topic of Weekly LiveAuctionTalk.com Column Rosemary McKittrick is a storyteller. She brings history, artifacts and collecting into perspective.
News-Antique.com - May 02,2009 - Santa Fe, May 2, 2009 -- Two days after he was elected to his second term on Nov. 10, 1864, Abraham Lincoln stood at the White House window in Washington, D.C., getting ready to address 1,500 well wishers on the lawn below.
Lincoln wrote his victory speech spontaneously after his unexpected win. He decided he needed to say more than a simple thank you. The speech was his way of shining a light on the possibility of ending the Civil War, the end of racial injustice and the beginning of a national truce.
Talking about the Civil War, Lincoln was philosophical. “Human nature will not change,” he said. “In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak, and as strong; as silly and as wise; as bad and good.”
His original four-page hand written victory speech was written on large heavy sheets of white paper marked with pale blue lines.
The speech sold on Feb. 12, for $3.44 million at Christie’s, New York, the most ever for an American historical document. The auction came a week ahead of the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth.
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