Carrying any kind of cargo that did not require getting to market at a very fast pace. Watch out our events saturday, march 7 at noon eas tern, and on sunday, march 8 on cspan3. 150 years ago this month president lincoln gave his second inaugural address on the east front of the u. S. Capitol. The country was still in the midst of the civil war, but thousands gathered to hear the president speak on march 4 1865. The library of congress will display the president s manuscript and reading copy of the speech for a limited time due to their delicate condition. Up next week visit the librarys Conservation Lab to view the documents and learn about their importance. This runs about 15 minutes. The occasion of this address was march 4, 1865, for lincolns second inaugural. People were expecting a much more celebratory kind of the speech. The war wasnt over. It would continue for a little over a month. Actually, a little bit more than that, but about a month until we surrendered at appomattox. But it was fairly clear that the union was going to win. You would expect someone to have more of a triumphant address. But actually, what you see an lincolns second inaugural is just over 700 words, the second shortest inaugural address, and instead, he says essentially, the war was caused by slavery but it was a national sin. God is the one determining how much longer this war is going to continue. When every drop of blood from the lash is compensated by one from the sword, then in gods time he will determine when this war is over. It finishes up with, after explaining what the war is, it is up into gods hands he ends with that famous line, with malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as god gives us to see the right. Essentially it starts with what was the past, what cause the war, where are we in the present, which is this war will continue until god determines otherwise, or that that punishment has been levied, and then it works to the future with, this is what we should do in the future. Essentially it was a bit about his reconstruction plan, that he did not want to be vindictive or vengeful. And in that context you also have to remember that some of his own party, people in the north were looking for a lot more vengeful mess at the end of the war, and a reconstruction plan. Theres a lot going on in the 701 or 703 words, depending on how you count it. What we are seeing here are the manuscript copy of Abraham Lincolns second inaugural address, and his reading copy. For this speech, unlike others, we know less about the composition, how long it took how long the actual process of it, but he was working up the thoughts in about the nine months, a year in advance. What lincoln would often do is he would have thoughts, he tried them out in letters or speeches, and they would get woven into ultimate speeches or addresses. With this, he has written out essentially a fair copy in his own handwriting and this is Abraham Lincolns handwriting, but then you see at the bottom of the last page that he is changing his mind. You see cutting and pasting there. This draft would have gone off to the Government Printing office for typesetting. When you see fellow countrymen and the name flynn, that was added later at the gpo in addition to these marks. Flynn would have been the typesetter who put this into type. Lincoln got back an uncorrected proof, which he then decided to cut and paste to show how they wanted to read the address. It is in four paragraphs in the manuscript draft. He has cut it up into little sections so he could know how he wanted to read the address, what the pacing was, and what i think was the most interesting of how he wanted to read it, if you see any of the other copies, and the war came as at the end of this paragraph. He subscribing four years ago on my first inaugural, we had many more reasons to have a longer address, to explain what was happening with the nation. Now theres not so much of a reason, and he accounts for the reason why the war had started. You see at the very end he separated it out to say, all dreaded the war, all wanted to avoid war and the war came. You can imagine lincoln reading and then stopping and saying and the war came. One thing you can always learn about lincoln from a draft to the final, and its in a more lighthearted way, but, still you a lot. Commas tell you a lot. Lincoln wrote for how people were going to hear a speech, not necessarily sitting by with a book of grammar as to where a comma was needed. He would write how he wanted his audience to hear something. If you wanted them to take a pause as they are reading or hearing it in their own head, he would put in a comma. Often when an address would go to the printer the printer is looking more for the grammatical point of view. He will take out this out commas put in commas, and lincoln will except some of those changes and add new ones. When you get to the reading copy, you see this little marks, that is where hes adding commas again. But you also see where he has decided instead of changing with the world, he changed it to all nations. He tends to write in a poetic or lyrical way. All nations sounds better than with the world. For a very small address, there are other things to be seen. Also if you look here where he originally said the southern part or the southern half in regards to slavery, that there was slavery in the southern half. Half of the nation wasnt the confederacy, because slavery existed in places that were still part of the north as well. It had been in maryland kentucky delaware. He changed it to the southern part. Its a minor difference, but it makes a charm this difference in terms of who hes talking about. People have asked, are there other copies of the second inaugural . Im only aware of him writing out one paragraph, but people did not know how short of a time he had left. Headed the library of Congress Come to own these two copies . We know how the manuscript draft came to us, that on the reverse of the fourth page, it is inscribed by lincoln in april 1865 to his secretary, john hey. It was through the hay family, his surviving family, in april of 1916 that the manuscript came to the library. With the reading copy, the records are not as clear from what i have looked at, that it did not seem to have come in on the same day. They are all considered part of the Abraham Lincoln papers, but with the reading copy, and still looking for exact confirmation as to how it got here. What is the library of congress do to preserve this document . We keep it in a specifically designed vault with the right environment controls temperature and humidity. Security measures are in place obviously. We try to manage the amount of display time that a document like this gets. Its for a popular, its always exciting to see it but we do pay the price for displaying these items. If you can see the four pages, they have some color differences. These two are very similar, probably have not been on display for a very long time. This one, a little bit longer. Because of the key phrases of the address, the fourth pages been on display multiple amounts of times for years at a time sometimes 10 years and that has really made an impact on the documents. The discoloration is probably caused by the type of glue in the paper. In 1865 we are getting mechanical papermaking. The products used in the paper are not the best. Although things combined, poor quality fiber and glue, cause under light exposure this coloration to take place. The other thing we keep a close eye on is the actual ink used. This ink is brown. That is not the original color of the ink. The original color is black. It is created by insects who put eggs in twigs. These tannens can be combined with iron sulfates and given a black colored ink. Over time and under the wrong circumstances, it turns brown. That is what is happening here. Thats not the only problem. It can also sync to the other side. Because of the highly acidic nature of this ink and the excess of iron in it it can eat its way to the back. What can we do about that . We can keep it under cool and dry environmental conditions and if its really bad, there are chemical treatments, but with a document like this i would be very hesitant about doing that. But we dont want to do is introduce any more water, which unfortunately has happened with this document and probably the other ones as well. Its unclear when it was treated, but the lining was removed. Thats good, but that introduced humidity, and sometimes that creates a halo effect around the ink. We definitely dont want to touch it with any water if we can help it. I want to point out one more thing that is interesting, the stains that you can see around the cut and paste, the reading copy, its in with an old glue with animal glue, made of cattle hide and bones. It looks like this. If it is cool or dry, its very hard to handle. It is rather stinky, smells like wet dog. That is very typical for the stains it creates. We know some kind of animal glue was used. The good news is that there isnt an awful lot of treatment we had to do for this document but some severe light damage has occurred to at least one of the pages, which is why we really want to be conservative with the amount of display time that he gets. Our records show it was 1959 when all four of the manuscript documents, as well as the reading copy, were on display. This is an opportunity to see these once again for a brief period of time. March 4 is the sesquicentennial reading date. That is a wednesday, and it will be on display for four days, march 4 through the seventh, and they will be on display in the great hall of the Jefferson Building in the large babel cases bible cases. There will be supporting materials as well, photographs and newspaper articles. Lincoln knew this would be a speech that people would remember. He told [indiscernible] a little over a month later, he said i expect the letter to wear as well, perhaps better than anything i have produced, but i believe its not immediately popular. The reason why men are not flattered by being shown there has been a difference of purpose between the almighty and them. When youre looking at this address, lincoln is basically saying everyone is responsible for the sin of slavery, and the punishment is being levied equally. If that is not what you are expecting to hear, and inaugural address for a nation that appears on the brink of winning a civil war, you can understand why it might not be immediately popular. Over the time, lincoln was correct that the second inaugural address along with the gettysburg address tend to be the two documents that people remember the most of lincolns, and the two documents that are in scribe at the lincoln memorial. The second inaugural is on the ninth north side. The gettysburg address is on the south side. What people remember about it is of course the last phrase is what people remember the most and why that page was displayed the most, that its pretty extraordinary after four years of civil war, after hundreds of thousands of deaths, the treasure involved, the lincoln goes into the future, with malice towards none, with charity for all, that that kind of generosity isnt something you would necessarily expect. That was not Frederick Douglasss favoriete part of the speech. He called the speech a sacred effort, but he concentrated more on the passages of slavery, that this war was about commentating in some sort of larger sense for the sin of slavery, and that is for you get that for every drop taken from the lash will be paid with one from the sword. For African Americans or member, this war was the war that illuminated slavery, that while Abraham Lincoln was giving this speech, the 13th amendment had been put out to the states and the 13th amendment was what had abolished slavery. The 13th amendment that had been proposed in 1861 was to leave slavery alone. Four years later, the 13th amendment is going through. Theres a lot people can look at in this speech in terms of what lincoln thought was the cause of war was for how you going to the future. Many historians have called this a jeremiah of sorts. This is a speech that has a lot of biblical references. Jeremiahd is taking people to task for some fault of theirs. His head jeremiads purtians had jeremiads all the time about, this is how things can improve. People have talked about that in terms of these jeremiads. This middle portion talking about slavery and where the nation has gone to the extent that god is punishing them, but it ends with here is how we are still a nation that god has favored. And lincoln did believe that. With live coverage of the u. S. House on cspan and the senate on cspan2, here on cspan3 we come to lament that coverage by showing you the most relevant congressional hearings and Public Affairs events. On weekends, cspan3 is the home to American History tv with programs that tell our nations story, including the civil wars 150th anniversary, but visiting battlefields and key events, american artifacts history bookshelf with the bestknown American History writers, the presidency, looking at the policies and legacies of our nations commanders in chief, lectures and history, with top College Professors delving into americas past, and our new series, reel america, featuring films from the 1930s through the 1970s. Cspan3, created by the cable tv industry and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. Watch as in hd, like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. Next weekend marks the 50th anniversary of bloody sunday, when Voting Rights advocates on a march from selma to Montgomery Alabama were met with violence from Alabama State troopers. American history tv will be live from selma next saturday and sunday, march 7 and eight, and each night at 8 00 eastern we will show highlights of our coverage. Here is congressman john lewis one of the leaders of the march, reflecting on selma 50 years later. When i heard dr. King had been assassinated, it was a sad time for me in a very dark our. And a very dark hour. If it had not been for him, i dont know what would have happened to me. Growing up very poor in rural alabama. Racial segregation and discrimination he gave me a way out, may be a way in. But the philosophy of nonviolence tend to tell us that you should not get lost in a sea of despair, that you should be helpful. Yourself continue to move pick yourself up and continue to move. You have to keep going. I think one of the great moments of hope, marching from selma to montgomery, after bloody sunday, and seeing the reaction of people around the nation and around the world. A demonstration demonstrations in more than 80 cities on almost every Major College campus in america said it is going to be all right. President lyndon johnson, eight days after bloody sunday, speaking to the nation gave one of the most meaningful speeches and american president had given in modern times on civil rights and Voting Rights. At the end of the speech he said, and we shall overcome. That was hope. That said it all. Join American History tv next saturday and sunday for live coverage from selma, alabama