150 Years Ago: April 11

On this day, April 11, 1865, two days after the surrender of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, Abraham Lincoln delivered his last public address. A crowd had gathered outside the White House, calling for the President. That evening, Lincoln addressed the crowd from the window over the north door of the White House, the place from which presidents of a time customarily made speeches. The speech he delivered on that occasion took up the thorny issue of reconstruction. 

Noah Brooks, a journalist close to the President, who covered the Lincoln administration for the Sacramento Daily Union, stood beside Lincoln that evening and held a light so he could read his speech. He also wrote a description of the moment:

Outside was a vast sea of faces, illuminated by the lights that burned in the festal array of the White House, and stretching far out into the misty darkness. It was a silent, intent, and perhaps surprised multitude. . . . Within stood the tall, gaunt figure of the President, deeply thoughtful, intent upon the elucidation of the generous policy which should be pursued toward the South. That this was not the sort of speech which the multitude had expected is tolerably certain.   

The entire text of the speech delivered on April 11 can be read here. 

John Wilkes Booth was in the crowd that evening and heard Lincoln make his first public expression of support for black suffrage. It so incensed Booth, an anti-abolitionist and Confederate sympathizer, that he is said to have vowed, "That is the last speech he will make."
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