Question

The following passage is from President Lincoln's second inaugural address:

While the [first] inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

Abraham Lincoln
March 4, 1865


In this section of Lincoln's second inaugural address, what claim does he make about the United States?
A.
They have helped former slaves gain freedom.
B.
They are almost at the end of the war.
C.
They are fighting to preserve the Union.
D.
They have more strength than the Confederacy.

Answer 1

C. He says they are fighting to preserve the Union — Lincoln emphasizes efforts to "save the Union" and that one side "would accept war rather than let [the nation] perish."