From the Washington Post, by Neely Tuckerconsidering the Second Bush Inaugural Address planned in January:


...Further, Bush faces a challenge in that second inaugurations are by nature
less giddy affairs. When Lincoln stood to give that landmark second
inaugural address during the Civil War, even he began by saying: "At this
second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less
occasion for an extended address than there was at the first."

But what he went on to say, particularly considering it came during the
nation's bloodiest war, is striking for its humility. Though the end of the
war was at hand, he did not boast or even promise victory.

He allowed that the war even might be God's punishment for slavery. If it
continued "until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be repaid by
another drawn with the sword," then so it must be.

He said that soldiers on both sides read the same Bible, prayed to the same
God, and each invoked His aid against the other. "It may seem strange that
any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread
from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not
judged," he said. "The prayers of both could not be answered. That of
neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes."

What faith! What dignity! What honesty!

Lincoln was assassinated a month later in Ford's Theatre, less than a mile
away from where he gave his inaugural address.

His own purposes, indeed.