![](media/image1.jpeg){width="6.495833333333334in"
height="1.3194444444444444in"}

**The Origin of the VA Motto**

**Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address**

![](media/image2.jpeg){width="1.6715277777777777in"
height="1.8479166666666667in"}

As the nation braced itself for the final throes of the Civil War,
thousands of spectators gathered on a muddy Pennsylvania Avenue near the
U.S. Capitol to hear President Lincoln's second inaugural address. It
was March 4, 1865, a time of great uneasiness. In just over one month,
the war would end and the president would be assassinated.

President Lincoln framed his speech on the moral and religious
implications of the war; rhetorically questioning how a just God could
unleash such a terrible war upon the nation. "If we shall suppose that
American slavery is one of those offenses in the providence of God, \...
and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe
due to those by whom the offenses came."

With its deep philosophical insights, critics have hailed the speech as
one of Lincoln's best.

As the speech progressed, President Lincoln turned from the divisive
bitterness at the war's roots to the unifying task of reconciliation and
reconstruction. In the speech's final paragraph, the president delivered
his prescription for the nation's recovery:

> *"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the
> right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the
> work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who
> shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan, to do
> all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among
> ourselves and with all nations."*
>
> With the words, *"To care for him who shall have borne the battle and
> for his widow, and his orphan,"* President Lincoln affirmed the
> government's obligation to care for those injured during the war and
> to provide for the families of those who perished on the battlefield.
>
> Today, a pair of metal plaques bearing those words flank the entrance
> to the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the Department of Veterans
> Affairs (VA). VA is the federal agency responsible for serving the
> needs of veterans by providing health care, disability compensation
> and rehabilitation, education assistance, home loans, burial in a
> national cemetery, and other benefits and services.
>
> Lincoln's immortal words became the VA motto in 1959, when the plaques
> were installed, and can be traced to Sumner G. Whittier, administrator
> of what was then called the Veterans Administration. A document on VA
> medical history prepared for the congressional Committee on Veterans'
> Affairs and titled, "To care for him who shall have borne the battle,"
> details how the words became VA's motto. "He (Whittier) worked no
> employee longer or harder than himself to make his personal credo the
> mission of the agency. What was that credo? Simply the words of
> Abraham Lincoln, *to care for him who shall have borne the battle and
> for his widow, and his orphan*. To indicate the mission of his
> agency's employees, Mr. Whittier had plaques installed on either side
> of the main entrance."
>
> President Lincoln's words have stood the test of time, and stand today
> as a solemn reminder of VA's commitment to care for those injured in
> our nation's defense and the families of those killed in its service.