Re: everyone should read this because it never was covered in the newspapers.

I would opine that regardless of what words came out of his mouth, what Lincoln was really doing was giving thanks to those who were duped into signing p to serve in the belief that they were freeing the slaves and legally holding the union together when what they were actually doing was illegally enslaving the states to be vassals of the federal government.  Regardless of the abomination of slaverly, our nation was formed as a voluntary collection of sovereign states whose authority superceded the federal government.  Nowhere was it ever written, nor has it ever been written, that the states did not have the right to secede or remain as they saw fit.