LINCOLN: HIS SECOND INAUGURATION & THE 2012 ELECTION

For many years this was the only known photograph of Lincoln's Second Inauguration. Above and to the right of Lincoln, without his iconic hat, John Wilkes Booth can be seen hiding within the crowd. On April 14, 1865, two days after Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Booth would assassinate Lincoln at Ford's Theater, where the president and his wife were enjoying an evening of entertainment.
(Photo is in the public Domain in the United States)

On Saturday, March 4, 1865, nearing the end of a destructive civil war, Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth President of the United States of America, gave his Second Inaugural Address. It has since been called one of the small handful of semisacred texts by which Americans conceive their place in the world. 1 Following the Inaugural Speech is a short piece that was found among Lincoln's papers after his assassination adds further illumination on his thoughts at the time.

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 the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new
1
Historian Mark Noll quoted in the Wikipedia article Abraham Lincoln (retrieved on November 20, 2012) See the article for the primary source.
President Lincoln's text, and the photograph, are in the Public Domain. All other text B. W. Reed (November 21, 2012)

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 warseeking 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 mens faces2, but let us judge not, that we be not judged 3. 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. 4 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.5 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.6 Abraham Lincoln Saturday, March 4, 1865
2 3 4 5 An allusion to Genesis 3:19, King James Version An allusion to Matthew 7:1, King James Version Matthew 18:7, King James Version Psalm 19:9, King James Version Second Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln (retrieved November 20, 2012)
President Lincoln's text, and the photograph, are in the Public Domain. All other text B. W. Reed (November 21, 2012)

Such were the words that this self-educated man spoke at his Second Inauguration. He starts, with melancholic eloquence, by justifying the necessity of the war, still ongoing, as the only way, terrible though it is, of saving the Union. He had, with idea of saving the union, promised noninterference with the South's slavery 7, but that having failed, he uses that very slavery to justify the war's necessity. Then, justification accomplished, he begins an examination of that very justification both sides felt themselves justified, but perhaps neither is before proposing that our lot is to proceed in the right as God gives us to see the right, but always With malice toward none, with charity for all. We see here a man searching his soul, not afraid to show his doubt, ultimately deciding on openness towards his enemies I find myself wishing that we had such politicians today. Just over seven weeks later, two days after Lee's surrender, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth In Lincoln's papers, after his death, was discovered his thoughts on the Divine Will, and the ongoing war: The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say that this is probably true that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his mere great power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And, having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.8

Looking over the Electoral Map of Lincoln's second election (1864), I am drawn to its resemblance to the Electoral Map for the 2012 Presidential Election. This resemblance finds an explanation in the accidents of History at the time Republicans were the Blue States, The Confederate States did not take part in the Election and many Western States were Territories at the time. And yet, as I watch the the divisive 2012 postelection season as it progresses the general lack of unity, the calls for secession and the irruption of politics framed in racial terms I wonder if, after almost 150 years, we continue to live the consequences of the same divisions that led us to the Civil War. I also wonder what President Lincoln (R-Illinois) would think of this. I don't know, but I think I know what he would say.

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. Abraham Lincoln
7 I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. Abraham Lincoln, quoting a speech in his First Inaugural Address, quoted in the Wikipedia article Abraham Lincoln (retrieved November 21, 2012) Abraham Lincoln Online (retrieved November 20, 2012)
President Lincoln's text, and the photograph, are in the Public Domain. All other text B. W. Reed (November 21, 2012)