Lot 251: The Senate printing of Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address

LINCOLN, ABRAHAM

Inaugural Address of the President of the United States on the Fourth of March, 1861. [Washington: Government Printing Office], Ordered to be printed March 8, 1861. Senate Executive Document No. 1, Special Session.Stitched pamphlet, disbound, housed in a folding cloth clamshell case. 9 x 6 inches (22.5 x 14.5 cm); 10 pp. Light dampstain affecting text, binding remnants to left edge

This is the rare Senate issue of Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address, printed four days after its delivery. The address offers Lincoln's grave warning to the South: "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." This issue of the address is scarce. It is described as a second printing and was preceded by newspaper broadside printings and proof printings of the speech read by Lincoln. The first shots of the Civil War would be fired one month later. Monaghan 102