In this beneficent work sections and races should be forgotten and
partisanship should be unknown. Let our people find a new meaning in
the divine oracle which declares that "a little child shall lead them,"
for our own little children will soon control the destinies of the
Republic.

My countrymen, we do not now differ in our judgment concerning the
controversies of past generations, and fifty years hence our children
will not be divided in their opinions concerning our controversies.
They will surely bless their fathers and their fathers' God that the
Union was preserved, that slavery was overthrown, and that both races
were made equal before the law. We may hasten or we may retard, but we
can not prevent, the final reconciliation. Is it not possible for us
now to make a truce with time by anticipating and accepting its
inevitable verdict?

Enterprises of the highest importance to our moral and material
well-being unite us and offer ample employment of our best powers. Let
all our people, leaving behind them the battlefields of dead issues,
move forward and in their strength of liberty and the restored Union
win the grander victories of peace.

The prosperity which now prevails is without parallel in our history.
Fruitful seasons have done much to secure it, but they have not done
all. The preservation of the public credit and the resumption of specie
payments, so successfully attained by the Administration of my
predecessors, have enabled our people to secure the blessings which the
seasons brought.