I Needed To Read Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address Today. You Should Too.

(Source: Wikipedia)

On this inauguration day I find myself, once again, reading Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, which was delivered 160 years ago this coming March. In my mind, it is Lincoln’s greatest speech. It’s one of the few presidential addresses that reveals additional insights into Lincoln’s world with each reading even as it reflects back on the reader’s own place and time in the world.

Lincoln somehow manages to project strength, humility and vulnerability all at the same time through his words.

It is easy to look back and view this address as one of the closing chapters of the Civil War, but that was anything but clear to Lincoln and the rest of the country. Lincoln could report on the “progress of our arms,” as “reasonably satisfying and encouraging to all,” but he had no idea how long it would it take for all Confederate armies to lay down their arms.

Other pressing questions loomed even larger. What would a lasting peace look like? How exactly would the former Confederate states be brought back into the Union? How would four million formerly enslaved men, women, and children be integrated into the country? Can a nation truly reconcile after so much violence and bloodshed?

Lincoln understood that the path toward reunion demanded a recognition of how the nation had arrived at this moment in time. “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.”

It also demanded a recognition of the cause: “One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war.”

Such certainty about who chose to “make war” and who chose to “accept war” may easily have led a man of lesser character and vision to embrace a spirit of vindictiveness toward his former enemies. A man of lesser character and vision may have used an inaugural address to continue to divide the nation.

That Lincoln resisted this urge constitutes his greatest strength even as the killing and suffering continued just across the Potomac River and in countless other places.

In the end, according to Lincoln, all Americans bore some responsibility for the violence and suffering already witnessed and which still lay in the future. There would be a victory one way or the other, but Lincoln recognized: “The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully.” Lincoln knew that a military victory would always fall short of full vindication.

Lincoln’s humility was most clearly on display for the nation in his admission that the ultimate course of the war was not in his hands or that of his generals, but in God’s hands. The war would not end “until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword.”

War would continue indefinitely, but peace could only be achieved by setting aside deep-seated feelings of “malice” and embracing “charity for all.” Arguably, this would be the most difficult challenge for a war-weary nation.

Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address has served as a template for presidents ever since and it will continue to do so for anyone with the character and strength to embrace its message.

At some point today, perhaps around noon, take some time to read Lincoln’s words for yourself. It will do you good.

Fellow-Countrymen:

At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of this great conflict which is of primary concern to the nation as a whole, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent 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.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

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.