Lincoln's Annual Address

On December 3rd, 1861, Lincoln issued is Annual Address, the equivalent of the State of the Union. He addressed many specific actions that had been taken, in this year, the most disastrous for the American Union. You can read the complete speech here. He closed saying this:

There are already among us those who if the Union be preserved will live to see it contain 250,000,000. The struggle of to-day is not altogether for to-day; it is for a vast future also. With a reliance on Providence all the more firm and earnest, let us proceed in the great task which events have devolved upon us.