Abraham Lincoln's words "with malice toward none" conveyed that the North would welcome the South back into the United States.
In his second inaugural speech, he recognized that southerners were fellow American citizens.
Abraham Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address on March 4, 1865, during his second inauguration as President of the United States. This speech conveyed his defense of his approach to Reconstruction, in which he aimed to stave off harsh treatment of the defeated South by reminding his listeners of how wrong both sides had been in imagining what lay before them when the war began four years earlier.
