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Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural
After four years of unspeakable horror and sacrifice on both sides, the Civil War was about to end. On March 4, 1865, at his second inauguration, President Lincoln did not offer the North the victory speech it yearned for; nor did he blame the South solely for the sin of slavery. Calling the whole nation to account, Lincoln offered a moral framework for peace and reconciliation. Eventually this "with malice toward none" address would be accepted and revered as one of the greatest in the nation's history. White's compelling description of Lincoln's articulation of our nation's struggle and the suffering of all--North, South, soldier, slave--offers new insight into Lincoln's own hard-won victory over doubt and his promise of authority and passion. Delivered only weeks before his assassination, the speech was the culmination of Lincoln's moral and rhetorical genius.
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First published January 1, 2002
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January 20, 2021
Lincoln’s greatest speech, according to historian Ronald C. White Jr., is not the Gettysburg Address - in spite of that address's resonant phrases like “Four score and seven years ago,” and “The last full measure of devotion,” and “Of the people, by the people, for the people.” The very title of White's book - Lincoln’s Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural - makes clear that, as far as he is concerned, the greatest speech that the 16th president of the United States of America ever gave was not the cemetery address that he offered halfway through the war, but rather the inaugural address that he gave as the war was ending.
By the time President Lincoln gave his second inaugural address, the American Civil War was moving toward its conclusion; within five weeks, Robert E. Lee would be surrendering the Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House. Against that historical context, White argues, Lincoln would use his Second Inaugural Address to “ask his audience to think with him about the cause and meaning of the war” (p. 59).
White is a professor of American intellectual and religious history at San Francisco Theological Seminary. Accordingly, it is not surprising that he focuses upon Lincoln’s direct references to religion in the Second Inaugural Address as one of the key ways in which the address differed from his prior speeches relating to slavery and the Civil War – and from earlier inaugural addresses by the 15 prior presidents. For instance, where references to God, or to Divine Providence, had generally been relatively vague in earlier inaugural speeches – “The Bible was quoted only once in those eighteen addresses” – Lincoln made a point of referencing and citing the Bible throughout the Second Inaugural. In White’s reading of the address, “The introduction of the Bible signaled Lincoln’s determination to think theologically as well as politically about the war” (pp. 101-02).
It is a thought-provoking proposition, for a couple of reasons. The question of Lincoln’s religiosity, or lack thereof, is still hotly debated among historians. Whenever I visit the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, Lincoln’s former house of worship in Washington, D.C., I think about the stories about Secretary of State William Seward urging Lincoln to attend church; Lincoln is said to have agreed to be a churchgoer not out of religious fervor, but rather because he thought his attendance at church would be good for morale throughout the Union.
Were these passages truly theological in their intent? Or were they more strictly political - the words of a master rhetor who knew what would appeal to a deeply religious American audience? Either way, these passages certainly resounded with their audience.
White also holds that Lincoln wanted all Americans, North as well as South, to recognize that the evil of slavery had been a part of the nation’s very beginnings. In White’s reading, Lincoln knew that “Americans had always been uncomfortable facing up to their own malevolence”, and therefore “concentrated a discussion on the problem of evil, weighed on the scales of divine justice” (pp. 151). That determination on Lincoln’s part certainly seems to come through in passages like this one:
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 bondman’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.”
It's interesting to wonder how Lincoln’s audience responded to those words on that raw March morning in 1865. As White points out, “Many in the North felt quite righteous in criticizing the South for rebellion and slavery” (p. 151). The crowd assembled before the Capitol no doubt listened with nods of righteous agreement when Lincoln noted that slavery was “not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it”; and by that late date, most Northerners would probably have been willing to agree with Lincoln’s statement that slavery “was, somehow, the cause of the war.”
But then, how did the members of that audience find themselves responding to Lincoln's subsequent assertion that all that American blood that was shed, both Northern and Southern, might have been a bit of karmic payback for the institutionalized violence that was slavery? It might have been an uncomfortable thought for many in Lincoln’s audience, even cloaked in the reassuring invocation of Psalm 19 and God’s justice at the end.
How apt, therefore, that Lincoln concludes his speech by writing the words, “With malice toward none, with charity for all…” White refers to these words as “a timeless promise of reconciliation” (p. 164); and once again, Lincoln’s humility comes through in the way he asks his audience, “With firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in…”
No victory dance, no blood and thunder, no calls for vengeance – just a good man reminding his audience that, as they near the end of a bloody and terrible war, the best thing they can possibly do is move forward together in a spirit of mercy and forbearance. President Lincoln, on that day, said exactly what needed to be said.
White concludes by stating very clearly why he feels that the circumstances of President Lincoln’s untimely death added to the power and resonance of the Second Inaugural Address:
Abraham Lincoln considered his Second Inaugural Address to be his greatest speech! With his death, the words of the Second Inaugural quickly took on new meaning. It now represented the central part of Lincoln’s unfinished legacy. As people looked back to that brisk March day, Lincoln’s words were understood as his last will and testament to America. The religious cast of the Second Inaugural gave it a power and authority that were singular….His concluding words, “With malice toward none, with charity for all,” usually disembodied from the speech as a whole, came to characterize Lincoln for all time. (pp. 200-01)
Some readers, I recognize, will disagree with White’s central claim; for them, the Gettysburg Address will always represent the height of Lincoln’s eloquence on behalf of American democracy. For my part, I would not want to have to choose between the two. I will simply observe that, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., Daniel Chester French’s dignified and powerful statue of Lincoln is framed by two of Lincoln’s published addresses, on opposite walls of the monument. On one side is the Gettysburg Address; on the other, the Second Inaugural. That, I would submit, is as it should be. The two speeches sit side by side as exceptionally important elements of Lincoln’s legacy; and if the second of these speeches has sometimes been overlooked, then White has certainly done much to correct that in Lincoln’s Greatest Speech.
By the time President Lincoln gave his second inaugural address, the American Civil War was moving toward its conclusion; within five weeks, Robert E. Lee would be surrendering the Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House. Against that historical context, White argues, Lincoln would use his Second Inaugural Address to “ask his audience to think with him about the cause and meaning of the war” (p. 59).
White is a professor of American intellectual and religious history at San Francisco Theological Seminary. Accordingly, it is not surprising that he focuses upon Lincoln’s direct references to religion in the Second Inaugural Address as one of the key ways in which the address differed from his prior speeches relating to slavery and the Civil War – and from earlier inaugural addresses by the 15 prior presidents. For instance, where references to God, or to Divine Providence, had generally been relatively vague in earlier inaugural speeches – “The Bible was quoted only once in those eighteen addresses” – Lincoln made a point of referencing and citing the Bible throughout the Second Inaugural. In White’s reading of the address, “The introduction of the Bible signaled Lincoln’s determination to think theologically as well as politically about the war” (pp. 101-02).
It is a thought-provoking proposition, for a couple of reasons. The question of Lincoln’s religiosity, or lack thereof, is still hotly debated among historians. Whenever I visit the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, Lincoln’s former house of worship in Washington, D.C., I think about the stories about Secretary of State William Seward urging Lincoln to attend church; Lincoln is said to have agreed to be a churchgoer not out of religious fervor, but rather because he thought his attendance at church would be good for morale throughout the Union.
Were these passages truly theological in their intent? Or were they more strictly political - the words of a master rhetor who knew what would appeal to a deeply religious American audience? Either way, these passages certainly resounded with their audience.
White also holds that Lincoln wanted all Americans, North as well as South, to recognize that the evil of slavery had been a part of the nation’s very beginnings. In White’s reading, Lincoln knew that “Americans had always been uncomfortable facing up to their own malevolence”, and therefore “concentrated a discussion on the problem of evil, weighed on the scales of divine justice” (pp. 151). That determination on Lincoln’s part certainly seems to come through in passages like this one:
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 bondman’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.”
It's interesting to wonder how Lincoln’s audience responded to those words on that raw March morning in 1865. As White points out, “Many in the North felt quite righteous in criticizing the South for rebellion and slavery” (p. 151). The crowd assembled before the Capitol no doubt listened with nods of righteous agreement when Lincoln noted that slavery was “not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it”; and by that late date, most Northerners would probably have been willing to agree with Lincoln’s statement that slavery “was, somehow, the cause of the war.”
But then, how did the members of that audience find themselves responding to Lincoln's subsequent assertion that all that American blood that was shed, both Northern and Southern, might have been a bit of karmic payback for the institutionalized violence that was slavery? It might have been an uncomfortable thought for many in Lincoln’s audience, even cloaked in the reassuring invocation of Psalm 19 and God’s justice at the end.
How apt, therefore, that Lincoln concludes his speech by writing the words, “With malice toward none, with charity for all…” White refers to these words as “a timeless promise of reconciliation” (p. 164); and once again, Lincoln’s humility comes through in the way he asks his audience, “With firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in…”
No victory dance, no blood and thunder, no calls for vengeance – just a good man reminding his audience that, as they near the end of a bloody and terrible war, the best thing they can possibly do is move forward together in a spirit of mercy and forbearance. President Lincoln, on that day, said exactly what needed to be said.
White concludes by stating very clearly why he feels that the circumstances of President Lincoln’s untimely death added to the power and resonance of the Second Inaugural Address:
Abraham Lincoln considered his Second Inaugural Address to be his greatest speech! With his death, the words of the Second Inaugural quickly took on new meaning. It now represented the central part of Lincoln’s unfinished legacy. As people looked back to that brisk March day, Lincoln’s words were understood as his last will and testament to America. The religious cast of the Second Inaugural gave it a power and authority that were singular….His concluding words, “With malice toward none, with charity for all,” usually disembodied from the speech as a whole, came to characterize Lincoln for all time. (pp. 200-01)
Some readers, I recognize, will disagree with White’s central claim; for them, the Gettysburg Address will always represent the height of Lincoln’s eloquence on behalf of American democracy. For my part, I would not want to have to choose between the two. I will simply observe that, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., Daniel Chester French’s dignified and powerful statue of Lincoln is framed by two of Lincoln’s published addresses, on opposite walls of the monument. On one side is the Gettysburg Address; on the other, the Second Inaugural. That, I would submit, is as it should be. The two speeches sit side by side as exceptionally important elements of Lincoln’s legacy; and if the second of these speeches has sometimes been overlooked, then White has certainly done much to correct that in Lincoln’s Greatest Speech.
June 25, 2024
Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address
Several outstanding books have examined in detail a single address by Abraham Lincoln. These books have the overall goal of explaining Lincoln's presidency, the meaning and significance of the Civil War, and the continued impact of the issues raised in this conflict upon today's United States. These books include Gary Wills's study of the Gettysburg Address, the books by John Corry and Harold Holzer on Lincoln's Cooper Union speech, Allen Guelzo's study of the Emancipation Proclmation, and, the book I will discuss here, "Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural" (2002) by Ronald C. White, Jr.
Ronald White is a professor of American Religious History at the San Francisco Theological Seminary. Given his background as a scholar of religion, it is unsurprising that Professor White focuses on President Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address and on the religious vision he finds Lincoln set forth in that great speech.
The book begins with a chapter setting the stage on the cold and rainy March 4, 1865, in Washington D.C. when Lincoln delivered his brief 703-word address. Union arms were close to victory, and the large audience undoubtedly expected a paean to the might of the Union Army together with tones of triumph.
President Lincoln delivered a speech entirely different. In short compass, he delivered a meditation on the origin of the War, its cost in human life, its origin in the institution of slavery, a call to forbearance and charity, and, most importantly for Professor White, a religious understanding of the meaning of the War.
Professor White explores the speech on a paragraph-by-paragraph, line-by-line basis. He discusses closely the words of Lincoln's text, and he places the text in context of events in the War and of mid-19th Century America. He offers illuminating insights on the Second Inaugural by discussing a short letter Lincoln wrote on April 4, 1864, to the Governor of Kentucky in which Lincoln explained his reasons for issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. He also relies heavily on a short passage of jottings Lincoln prepared for himself in September, 1862, captioned "Meditation on the Divine Will."
The Second Inaugural as Professor White expounds it sets forth a complex religious message. The War, as Professor White reads Lincoln, was the will of a living and ethical God and was a recompense for the sin of slavery. This sin was nation-wide in scope and could not be imputed only to the rebelling Confederates. During the course of the conflict, Lincoln had moved from the agnosticism and determinism of his youth to a concept of a personal God. His God was nondenominational and nontribal rather that the God of any particular creed (Lincoln never joined a church) or of factions, including the North or the South. The scourge of slavery had brought on the War, but the end of the War opened the opportunity for forgiveness, reconciliation, and justice, "with malice toward none with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right."
It is an impressive and theologically-complex vision. Professor White writes with a purpose of encouraging meditation among his readers on the role of religion (not denominationalism) in our public life and on the continuing struggle in our country to eliminate the vestiges of slavery and racism. He writes (p. 202):
"The Lincoln that is available to us comes with no simple answers. The chasm of race, which undergirded the legal structure of slavery, continues even though the Civil Rights movement, a hundred years after the Civil War, spearheaded political and legal action intended to right ancient wrongs. Martin Luther King, Jr. chose to speak with the imposing statue of Lincoln as the background when he offered his dream for America."
Those readers interested in exploring further the complicated question of Lincoln's philosophical and religious beliefs may wish to read Allen Guelzo's biography "Redeemer President" together with his more recent study of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Robin Friedman
Several outstanding books have examined in detail a single address by Abraham Lincoln. These books have the overall goal of explaining Lincoln's presidency, the meaning and significance of the Civil War, and the continued impact of the issues raised in this conflict upon today's United States. These books include Gary Wills's study of the Gettysburg Address, the books by John Corry and Harold Holzer on Lincoln's Cooper Union speech, Allen Guelzo's study of the Emancipation Proclmation, and, the book I will discuss here, "Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural" (2002) by Ronald C. White, Jr.
Ronald White is a professor of American Religious History at the San Francisco Theological Seminary. Given his background as a scholar of religion, it is unsurprising that Professor White focuses on President Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address and on the religious vision he finds Lincoln set forth in that great speech.
The book begins with a chapter setting the stage on the cold and rainy March 4, 1865, in Washington D.C. when Lincoln delivered his brief 703-word address. Union arms were close to victory, and the large audience undoubtedly expected a paean to the might of the Union Army together with tones of triumph.
President Lincoln delivered a speech entirely different. In short compass, he delivered a meditation on the origin of the War, its cost in human life, its origin in the institution of slavery, a call to forbearance and charity, and, most importantly for Professor White, a religious understanding of the meaning of the War.
Professor White explores the speech on a paragraph-by-paragraph, line-by-line basis. He discusses closely the words of Lincoln's text, and he places the text in context of events in the War and of mid-19th Century America. He offers illuminating insights on the Second Inaugural by discussing a short letter Lincoln wrote on April 4, 1864, to the Governor of Kentucky in which Lincoln explained his reasons for issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. He also relies heavily on a short passage of jottings Lincoln prepared for himself in September, 1862, captioned "Meditation on the Divine Will."
The Second Inaugural as Professor White expounds it sets forth a complex religious message. The War, as Professor White reads Lincoln, was the will of a living and ethical God and was a recompense for the sin of slavery. This sin was nation-wide in scope and could not be imputed only to the rebelling Confederates. During the course of the conflict, Lincoln had moved from the agnosticism and determinism of his youth to a concept of a personal God. His God was nondenominational and nontribal rather that the God of any particular creed (Lincoln never joined a church) or of factions, including the North or the South. The scourge of slavery had brought on the War, but the end of the War opened the opportunity for forgiveness, reconciliation, and justice, "with malice toward none with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right."
It is an impressive and theologically-complex vision. Professor White writes with a purpose of encouraging meditation among his readers on the role of religion (not denominationalism) in our public life and on the continuing struggle in our country to eliminate the vestiges of slavery and racism. He writes (p. 202):
"The Lincoln that is available to us comes with no simple answers. The chasm of race, which undergirded the legal structure of slavery, continues even though the Civil Rights movement, a hundred years after the Civil War, spearheaded political and legal action intended to right ancient wrongs. Martin Luther King, Jr. chose to speak with the imposing statue of Lincoln as the background when he offered his dream for America."
Those readers interested in exploring further the complicated question of Lincoln's philosophical and religious beliefs may wish to read Allen Guelzo's biography "Redeemer President" together with his more recent study of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Robin Friedman
July 11, 2022
This is a short but solid effort that in some ways has been eclipsed by later books like Douglas Wilson's Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words, which builds up to Lincoln's Second Inaugural by examining other prominent Lincoln texts that preceded it, and White's own A. Lincoln, which parses the language in the Second Inaugural as one small part of a full biography. That said, this book still holds up as a standalone analysis of a single speech, hailed by many as being Lincoln's best.
The central goal of the book is to analyze the words and meaning of the inaugural address, but White also describes the inaugural itself and weaves in background and context about the times and about Lincoln’s life. At times these efforts at context can come across as digressions, as we depart from the speech itself for long stretches, but it does eventually lead us back to the main topic.
The book is organized in a unique way - between the introduction and conclusion, each chapter is introduced by, and focuses on, a portion of the inaugural text. White then uses each chapter to analyze that paragraph, or partial paragraph, and to expand on its theme - the portion of the speech that invokes God for the first time, for example, leads into a chapter that considers religion’s role in 19th century America and in Lincoln’s own life. The idea is to provide enough background to explain how Lincoln came to choose the words he did, and what he was looking to accomplish by doing so.
As the speech reaches its climax and conclusion, the book’s chapters become shorter and sharper, with more analysis of words and meanings, and less diversionary context and background. White digs into Lincoln’s phrasing, his word choices and the poetic and sermon-like nature of the address. And he often pauses to ponder not only what Lincoln said but how he said it, imagining how Lincoln would have read certain lines, where he would pause and what words he would emphasize.
The book concludes by noting the mixed initial public reaction to the address, and the new and lasting meaning it assumed after Lincoln’s death. "Because we often view Lincoln's life through the lens of his assassination, we are tempted to see the Second Inaugural as an ending," White observes. Lincoln, of course, envisioned it as a call for a new beginning over which he would preside. He couldn’t have known that the Second Inaugural would be his last major address. But White makes a convincing argument that it was indeed his best.
The central goal of the book is to analyze the words and meaning of the inaugural address, but White also describes the inaugural itself and weaves in background and context about the times and about Lincoln’s life. At times these efforts at context can come across as digressions, as we depart from the speech itself for long stretches, but it does eventually lead us back to the main topic.
The book is organized in a unique way - between the introduction and conclusion, each chapter is introduced by, and focuses on, a portion of the inaugural text. White then uses each chapter to analyze that paragraph, or partial paragraph, and to expand on its theme - the portion of the speech that invokes God for the first time, for example, leads into a chapter that considers religion’s role in 19th century America and in Lincoln’s own life. The idea is to provide enough background to explain how Lincoln came to choose the words he did, and what he was looking to accomplish by doing so.
As the speech reaches its climax and conclusion, the book’s chapters become shorter and sharper, with more analysis of words and meanings, and less diversionary context and background. White digs into Lincoln’s phrasing, his word choices and the poetic and sermon-like nature of the address. And he often pauses to ponder not only what Lincoln said but how he said it, imagining how Lincoln would have read certain lines, where he would pause and what words he would emphasize.
The book concludes by noting the mixed initial public reaction to the address, and the new and lasting meaning it assumed after Lincoln’s death. "Because we often view Lincoln's life through the lens of his assassination, we are tempted to see the Second Inaugural as an ending," White observes. Lincoln, of course, envisioned it as a call for a new beginning over which he would preside. He couldn’t have known that the Second Inaugural would be his last major address. But White makes a convincing argument that it was indeed his best.
August 1, 2018
Lincoln's Greatest Speech suffers from exactly the same malady as two similar books: Harold Holzer's Lincoln at Cooper Union and Gary Wills Pulitzer Prizewinning Lincoln at Gettysburg. All three books would have been wonderful and remarkable fifty-page chapters or stand-alone articles, but none of them really have enough material for a 200-page book. But stand-alone articles don't become bestsellers; books do, so, in all three cases, books were made.
Like the other books, Lincoln's Greatest Speech has some really good analysis of the speech in question--in this case, Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, which, at only 703 words, provides only a limited amount of grist for even a really good reading. But it also contains a lot of filler information. For example, one of the lines in the speech declares that both the North and the South "both read the same Bible and pray to the same God." White uses this as an excuse for a long digression on this history of Bibles in the United States, including the activities of the American Bible Society to print Bibles for every home in the nation. This is interesting information, but it relates so tangentially to the actual speech that it becomes a distraction.
The book is organized around paragraphs of the speech, with four chapters devoted to the lengthy third paragraph and one chapter to each of the other three. This is a defensible organization, but it also sets up all of the departures from the speech into stray biographical observations, snippets of history, vaguely related details from other points in American history, and personal reflections on the meaning of the Civil War generally. White keeps bouncing from serious textual analysis to textually inspired reflections on all sorts of things.
When White does read the text closely, he does a good job, balancing rhetorical and contextual analysis. As a theologian, he is well positioned to grapple with a speech that is essentially a modern version of a biblical prophecy: a Jeremiad that conceives of the war as a punishment by God on the entire, and united, United States of America. I think that he gets Lincoln's religious intentions in the speech more or less correct.
The flaws in the book are not the fault of the author, but of the constraints of a publishing environment that gives almost all of its rewards to books of a certain length and heft. Billy Joel once lamented, "If you want to have a hit, you've got to make it fit, so they cut it down to 3:05." In this case, they pumped it up to 203. But the essential motivations were the same.
Like the other books, Lincoln's Greatest Speech has some really good analysis of the speech in question--in this case, Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, which, at only 703 words, provides only a limited amount of grist for even a really good reading. But it also contains a lot of filler information. For example, one of the lines in the speech declares that both the North and the South "both read the same Bible and pray to the same God." White uses this as an excuse for a long digression on this history of Bibles in the United States, including the activities of the American Bible Society to print Bibles for every home in the nation. This is interesting information, but it relates so tangentially to the actual speech that it becomes a distraction.
The book is organized around paragraphs of the speech, with four chapters devoted to the lengthy third paragraph and one chapter to each of the other three. This is a defensible organization, but it also sets up all of the departures from the speech into stray biographical observations, snippets of history, vaguely related details from other points in American history, and personal reflections on the meaning of the Civil War generally. White keeps bouncing from serious textual analysis to textually inspired reflections on all sorts of things.
When White does read the text closely, he does a good job, balancing rhetorical and contextual analysis. As a theologian, he is well positioned to grapple with a speech that is essentially a modern version of a biblical prophecy: a Jeremiad that conceives of the war as a punishment by God on the entire, and united, United States of America. I think that he gets Lincoln's religious intentions in the speech more or less correct.
The flaws in the book are not the fault of the author, but of the constraints of a publishing environment that gives almost all of its rewards to books of a certain length and heft. Billy Joel once lamented, "If you want to have a hit, you've got to make it fit, so they cut it down to 3:05." In this case, they pumped it up to 203. But the essential motivations were the same.
December 26, 2024
i read this for school and was determined to read it in one sitting and in doing so i feel like my brain is mush. i actually enjoyed this even though i thought i wasn’t going to, and being an APUSH nerd made it less of a task and more of an enjoyable read. but, taking in all of that information (while also trying to take notes and annotate for school) my brain is definitely fried and i need a break from Abe for a bit😭
January 16, 2020
In this book White unpacks the layered meaning, and expertly analyzes the wisdom and lyricism of Lincoln’s brief Second Inaugural address.
Lincoln gave this speech when Union victory was all but assured, 6 weeks before his assassination, so his words have lived on as a sort of last will and testament.
Lincoln had apparently come to regard the Civil War as God’s judgment for the evil of slavery that was to be borne by both the North and the South. In this final address he sought not revenge nor retribution, but instead healing and reconciliation.
As a reminder, here is the final of the only five paragraph speech:
”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 for his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
It is a remarkable speech by a truly remarkable man.
Lincoln gave this speech when Union victory was all but assured, 6 weeks before his assassination, so his words have lived on as a sort of last will and testament.
Lincoln had apparently come to regard the Civil War as God’s judgment for the evil of slavery that was to be borne by both the North and the South. In this final address he sought not revenge nor retribution, but instead healing and reconciliation.
As a reminder, here is the final of the only five paragraph speech:
”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 for his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
It is a remarkable speech by a truly remarkable man.
April 23, 2012
An entire book about a 703 word speech? Yes, and it's an excellent one. In Ronald C. White, Jr.'s 2002 effort Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural, White delves into the background of the speech, the context of the times, the resonance of its themes, and the origins of Abraham Lincoln's ideas. I already appreciated Lincoln's magnificent speech, and that appreciation has grown immensely with reading White's illuminating volume.
White begins with setting the stage of Inauguration Day, March 4th, 1865, describing the events of the day leading up to the inauguration ceremony, the parade, the composition of the crowd. It finitely helps to put the reader in the moment. The majority of the book, however, is a breakdown of the speech itself, and that is handled very well.
Breaking the speech into portions, White looks at every facet of Lincoln's words. My favorite sections are White's comparisons of the Second Inaugural to previous speeches and writings from Lincoln. The path of Lincoln's thought over the course of the war becomes clearer as White presents earlier speeches and private and public letters, several of which foreshadow arguments, ideas, and phrases used later in the Second Inaugural.
A major area White examines to explain critical portions of the speech includes religious thought. This is critical, given the several biblical quotes Lincoln uses in the Inaugural. In addition, White - showing his background as a religious scholar - explains how Lincoln's religious background, the style of sermons of the day, differences in meaning of words like "charity" and "offense" between the 19th century and now, bible distribution among soldiers, and even the content of specific sermons Lincoln is recorded as having attended, influenced the ideas and presentation of the Second Inaugural.
The other primary angle White looks at the speech from is the action of the war itself. Specific battles, and the response from Lincoln and the public, are shown to have guided Lincoln is adopting his conciliatory attitude and his unwillingness to boast of impending victory or call for harsh measures against the South.
White concludes with a section detailing reactions to the speech, from the North, South, and abroad. Given it's place in Lincoln's canon today, hearing what those of the time - who did not yet know it would be a farewell speech - thought of it is interesting. As Lincoln himself wrote, "I believe it is not immediately popular. Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them."
I listened to the audio version of Lincoln's Greatest Speech, as read by Raymond Todd. Todd delivered an excellent performance, giving the multiple readings of the speech, in whole or in parts, definite gravitas, and keeping the explanatory portions of the book brisk and flowing.
I highly recommend Lincoln's Greatest Speech to anyone interested in Lincoln, the Civil War, or speech writing. The book definitely has a narrow focus, but it hits its goal perfectly. I look forward to reading White's single volume biography A. Lincoln, and plan to read some of the other books focusing on specific Lincoln speeches such as the Gettysburg Address and the Cooper Union speech.
White begins with setting the stage of Inauguration Day, March 4th, 1865, describing the events of the day leading up to the inauguration ceremony, the parade, the composition of the crowd. It finitely helps to put the reader in the moment. The majority of the book, however, is a breakdown of the speech itself, and that is handled very well.
Breaking the speech into portions, White looks at every facet of Lincoln's words. My favorite sections are White's comparisons of the Second Inaugural to previous speeches and writings from Lincoln. The path of Lincoln's thought over the course of the war becomes clearer as White presents earlier speeches and private and public letters, several of which foreshadow arguments, ideas, and phrases used later in the Second Inaugural.
A major area White examines to explain critical portions of the speech includes religious thought. This is critical, given the several biblical quotes Lincoln uses in the Inaugural. In addition, White - showing his background as a religious scholar - explains how Lincoln's religious background, the style of sermons of the day, differences in meaning of words like "charity" and "offense" between the 19th century and now, bible distribution among soldiers, and even the content of specific sermons Lincoln is recorded as having attended, influenced the ideas and presentation of the Second Inaugural.
The other primary angle White looks at the speech from is the action of the war itself. Specific battles, and the response from Lincoln and the public, are shown to have guided Lincoln is adopting his conciliatory attitude and his unwillingness to boast of impending victory or call for harsh measures against the South.
White concludes with a section detailing reactions to the speech, from the North, South, and abroad. Given it's place in Lincoln's canon today, hearing what those of the time - who did not yet know it would be a farewell speech - thought of it is interesting. As Lincoln himself wrote, "I believe it is not immediately popular. Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them."
I listened to the audio version of Lincoln's Greatest Speech, as read by Raymond Todd. Todd delivered an excellent performance, giving the multiple readings of the speech, in whole or in parts, definite gravitas, and keeping the explanatory portions of the book brisk and flowing.
I highly recommend Lincoln's Greatest Speech to anyone interested in Lincoln, the Civil War, or speech writing. The book definitely has a narrow focus, but it hits its goal perfectly. I look forward to reading White's single volume biography A. Lincoln, and plan to read some of the other books focusing on specific Lincoln speeches such as the Gettysburg Address and the Cooper Union speech.
January 18, 2021
I read this book in prep for the inauguration of Joe Biden as our new president. This is by far Lincoln's greatest speech...I hope Biden gets inspiration from Lincoln. We most definitely need divine help as a nation.
August 31, 2021
An essential book about the glorious speech that is among the most valuable treasures of the Lincoln legacy. White provides the historical context and rhetorical anatomy to show how this secular sermon to our country--North and South--came from the depths of a prayerful and surprising man who understood that, after years of unimaginable devastation, only charity, never malice, could provide hope for a united future. All the new-fangled critics of Lincoln's conflicted views on slavery should read this speech slowly, perhaps with White's book at their side. Then, reflecting on Lincoln's words at his Second Inaugural, they, and we, might proclaim, as did Frederick Douglass: "[I] clapped my hands in gladness and thanksgiving at their utterance."
June 1, 2017
An abundance of insight. Well written and enjoyable. I read and audiobooked this selection. The time it took me to read this is not a reflection of the book.
December 28, 2020
A historical account of this vital speech written by a theologian. Right up my alley. The ideas expressed in the speech might just be what we need in a time like ours.
March 29, 2022
I picked this up because a friend who is a rhetoric teacher invited me to read it with her and discuss it and it was SO GOOD. A great overview of Lincoln's second inaugural address, that was well supported by the history of the time/place and other peoples journal and thoughts from that era. It reminded me why I need to keep pursuing original sources without revisionist history.
March 4, 1865: "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 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 secular 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 trump, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both rad 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 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 offices 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 bondman'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, for his widow, and his orphan-to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting piece, among ourselves, and with all nations."
p. 63: In lifting up the word "war," Lincoln was preparing his audience form more profound questions. Up until now, "war" was being described as the direct object, both grammatically and historically, of the principal actors. Now, recounting the complex motivations that led to war, Lincoln was beginning to suggest that neither side was fully in control. "War" was about to become the subject rather than the object.
p. 65: Lincoln was convinced that an excellent way to persuade people was to show them historical precedent. After 1854, Lincoln used Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence as the historical precedent upon which to ground his arguments for political equality for black Americans.
One can imagine the intense emotions at Gettysburg as people gathered for the dedication in November 1863. This was not a serene cemetery with rows of white crosses on manicured lawns. Gettysburg on that day was still an unfinished burial site. Barely a third of the bodies had been buried. Confederate skeletons lay unburied beneath stones and vegetation dying with the onset of winter.
p. 67: Lacking formal instruction, Lincoln worked all his life to become an educated person. He walked miles across the prairie as a youth to borrow a book to satisfy his love of learning. He taught himself Euclid's geometric principles while tramping around the Eighth Circuit as a lawyer because he wanted to discipline his mind. An earlier intention to lift up Lincoln as a man of the people unintentionally downgraded Lincoln as a thoughtful man of ideas. The recent emphasis on Lincoln as an astute politician should not be at the expense of de-emphasizing his philosophical or theological interests.
p. 71: Most intriguing is Parker's suggestion as to a major cause for the decline of oratory: reading. "The eyes in a measure supersede the ears." Why was reading the culprit "The press carries the day against forum, tribune, and government." ...The reality of change in antebellum America from a society of small, independent communities to a mass society was that a thousand people might hear the orator but tens of thousands would read the speech. The result might be a split verdict: "If the speech reads well, the verdict of the readers altogether outvotes those of the hearers."
p. 79: This sentence is both a transition and a foreshadowing. The audience doesn't know it yet, but "And the war came" will lift eh conflict beyond mere human instrumentality. It suggests that no mortal being can control the fortunes of war. Lincoln wants his listeners to understand that this war cannot be understood simply as the fulfillment of human plans.
p. 98: The Burden of the new paragraph is neither Lincoln's passivity nor even the surprise of the parties. The central meaning was Lincoln's assertion that God was the primary actor in this drama. Lincoln's acknowledgement of his own passivity is his way of pointing to the larger truth of the activity of God.
Lincoln's focus on God as actor is announced four times. First, after Lincoln spoke about the condition of the nation being "not what either party, or any many devised, or expected," he concluded, "God alone can claim it." Are Lincoln's thoughts about God here expressed in resignation or affirmation? We need to read on. In the second and third instances, Lincoln asserted that God was the supreme actor who "wills." God both "wills the removal of a great wrong," and "wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong." In the fourth instance, the reality that "the nation's condition is not what either party, or any many devised," is the ultimate reason why Lincoln concludes, "Impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God." These attestations are not passive acquiescence but, rather, an avowal of God acting in history.
p. 103: The centrality of the Bible in nineteenth-century America cannot be overemphasized. The publication of the Bible soared above all other books. Christians understood the Bible to be the Word of God. Ordinary citizens were confident in their ability to understand the Bible. If in the twentieth century people would argue over the authority and interpretation of the Bible, in the nineteenth, the Bible was fundamentally a personal resource in life and in death.
p. 107: In the West, Bibles bound for General (and Episcopal Bishop) Leonidas Polk's Confederate army at Columbus, Kentucky, in early 1862 were at first stopped as contraband by federal troops at Cairo, IL. Finally, Commanders Ulysses S Grant and Polk worked out a flag of truce for Bibles. Regular shipments of Bibles under such flags were sent south from NY via Fort Monroe and City Point. Secretary of War Stanton approved this measure, and the Norfolk Steamship Company paid all the shipping expenses. As late as December of 1863, in response to a request from Levi Thorne, pastor of the Baptist church at Kingston, NC, the American Bible Society approved a shipment of 100,000 volumes to NC. This flag of truce for Bibles could only be worked out in a culture where "both read the same Bible."
113: According to the letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament, "the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword." Lincoln liked ot wield the Bible as a sword, using one edge to affirm and the other to question. Or, as the same verse continues, to use the other edge of the sword to judge "the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Heb 4:12 KJV).
In this second level of meaning, Lincoln judged "the thoughts and intents" of those who used or misused the Bible or prayer for partisan purposes. Lincoln offered here not only the edge of affirmation , but interrogation. The last part of the sentence, "and each invokes His aid against the other," is not framed grammatically as a question, but it is clear that Lincoln now began a section where he asked questions about both human actions and God's actions.
Lincoln was asking how it was possible for one side to ask God's aid agains the other side. He was not only asking a question, but inveighing against a tribal God who would take the side of a section or party. Lincoln was building a case for an inclusive God. He, who had been discontented wit the sectarianism of the churches, was not happy with talk of a God who was captive to North or South. He had become troubled by those who came to him to say God was on our side. In his Second Inaugural, he spoke out against a tribal God, on the side of the North, and spoke instead of an inclusive God-inclusive, as Lincoln would explain, in both judgment and reconciliation.
(in response to Union losses at Bull Run)
p. 122: That same day, Lincoln put pen to paper in a private musing. A brooding president strained to see the light in one of the darkness moments of 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 [sic] 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 this is probably true-that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his mere quiet 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."
p. 165: Lincoln must have trusted that by now he had forged a bond with his audience. Well aware of their feelings of both hope and despair, he was about to ask his listeners for acts of incredible compassion. He would summon them to overcome the barrier of race and the boundary of sectionalism and come together again in reconciliation.
p. 167: Lincoln's grand indicative was that God had been present in the midst of the Civil War. God's providence is the prism through which he carefully refracted the meaning of the war. Lincoln points beyond himself and his generals to God as the primary actor. His pre0inaugural musings, from the "meditation on the Divine Will" to the letters to Eliza Gurney, and now the Second Inaugural are his attempt to see, through a mirror darkly, God's actions in the war.
An indicative usually included both grace and judgment. "American slavery" was the "offense" that was the basis for "judgment." Was there any grace in the Second Inaugural? The grace or good news is that "the Almighty has His own purposes." This "Living God" was bringing about renewal through the purification of human purposes. For Lincoln, in the intersection of his politics and theology, grace and judgment were never far from each other.
Convinced of God's activity, Lincoln would never speak about God in the language of triumphalism or jingoism. He was always suspicious of visiting church delegations of ministers who knew exactly, where, where, and how God was on their side. He could not be comfortable with those voices in the surging evangelicalism of his day which seemed to o familiar with the Almighty. Lincoln, who did not wear his faith on his sleeve, never spoke brashly about God.
p. 179: Lincoln ended his Second Inaugural Address with a coda of healing: to bind up...to care for...to duo all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
Portraits of widows and orphans now balance the images of blood and swords. Lincoln had defined the signposts toward winning the peace by achieving reconciliation. In this final paragraph, he declared that the true test of the aims of war would be how e now treated those who have been defeated. If enmity continued after hostilities ceased, the war would have been in vain.
These are no maudlin words crafted for emotional effect. The final paragraph is sublime. His words are directed to the tough practical living actions that must replace retribution with "charity."
In this final paragraph, Lincoln offered the ultimate surprise. Instead of rallying his supporters, in the name of God, to support the war, he asked his listeners, quietly, to imitate the ways of God.
p. 185: Lincoln's audience, even when standing in the same location, facing the west wing of the Capitol, was really standing in many different locations. Their social and political locations had much to do with how they heard the speech.
p. 197: What did Lincoln mean about the address's not being "immediately popular"?
...Lincoln supplied his own answer. "Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them." Human purpose, whether of the North or the South, lay in the invoking of a tribal God. His purpose had been to invoke a universal God. He had dared to say that this God was judging the whole nation for the "offense" of slavery. With God there is no partiality.
The issue was, finally, one of purpose. To deny it, however, in this case, is to deny that there is a God governing the world." He had pondered God's purpose in the Meditation on the divine will" and come to the conclusion, "in the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party." In his first letter to Eliza Gurney, he had linked this purpose to God's governing in the world. "We must believe that He permits it [the war] for some wise purpose of his own, mysterious and unknown to us; and though with our limited understandings we may not be able to comprehend it, yet we cannot but believe, that he who made the world still governs it."
202: The separation of church and state in the US has never meant the separation of religion and politics. In words that surprised his audience, Lincoln brought to his address deep theological thinking and argument. But even as he grounds his argument with Biblical moorings, Lincoln speaks forever against any "God bless America" theology that fails to come to terms with evil and hypocrisy in its own house. While the audience waited to hear words of self-congratulation, Lincoln continued to explain the implications of the judgment of God. He knew that the peril of theological politics is the danger of self-righteousness.
Lincoln wrote for all time. Overwhelmed by the decisions and the death toll of the Civil War, Lincoln saw that the issues at hand would not be solved by either emancipation or armistice. As the war drew to a close, Lincoln offered his sermons as the prism through which he himself strained to see the light of God. The refractions from that prism point to judgment and hope.
March 4, 1865: "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 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 secular 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 trump, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both rad 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 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 offices 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 bondman'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, for his widow, and his orphan-to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting piece, among ourselves, and with all nations."
p. 63: In lifting up the word "war," Lincoln was preparing his audience form more profound questions. Up until now, "war" was being described as the direct object, both grammatically and historically, of the principal actors. Now, recounting the complex motivations that led to war, Lincoln was beginning to suggest that neither side was fully in control. "War" was about to become the subject rather than the object.
p. 65: Lincoln was convinced that an excellent way to persuade people was to show them historical precedent. After 1854, Lincoln used Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence as the historical precedent upon which to ground his arguments for political equality for black Americans.
One can imagine the intense emotions at Gettysburg as people gathered for the dedication in November 1863. This was not a serene cemetery with rows of white crosses on manicured lawns. Gettysburg on that day was still an unfinished burial site. Barely a third of the bodies had been buried. Confederate skeletons lay unburied beneath stones and vegetation dying with the onset of winter.
p. 67: Lacking formal instruction, Lincoln worked all his life to become an educated person. He walked miles across the prairie as a youth to borrow a book to satisfy his love of learning. He taught himself Euclid's geometric principles while tramping around the Eighth Circuit as a lawyer because he wanted to discipline his mind. An earlier intention to lift up Lincoln as a man of the people unintentionally downgraded Lincoln as a thoughtful man of ideas. The recent emphasis on Lincoln as an astute politician should not be at the expense of de-emphasizing his philosophical or theological interests.
p. 71: Most intriguing is Parker's suggestion as to a major cause for the decline of oratory: reading. "The eyes in a measure supersede the ears." Why was reading the culprit "The press carries the day against forum, tribune, and government." ...The reality of change in antebellum America from a society of small, independent communities to a mass society was that a thousand people might hear the orator but tens of thousands would read the speech. The result might be a split verdict: "If the speech reads well, the verdict of the readers altogether outvotes those of the hearers."
p. 79: This sentence is both a transition and a foreshadowing. The audience doesn't know it yet, but "And the war came" will lift eh conflict beyond mere human instrumentality. It suggests that no mortal being can control the fortunes of war. Lincoln wants his listeners to understand that this war cannot be understood simply as the fulfillment of human plans.
p. 98: The Burden of the new paragraph is neither Lincoln's passivity nor even the surprise of the parties. The central meaning was Lincoln's assertion that God was the primary actor in this drama. Lincoln's acknowledgement of his own passivity is his way of pointing to the larger truth of the activity of God.
Lincoln's focus on God as actor is announced four times. First, after Lincoln spoke about the condition of the nation being "not what either party, or any many devised, or expected," he concluded, "God alone can claim it." Are Lincoln's thoughts about God here expressed in resignation or affirmation? We need to read on. In the second and third instances, Lincoln asserted that God was the supreme actor who "wills." God both "wills the removal of a great wrong," and "wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong." In the fourth instance, the reality that "the nation's condition is not what either party, or any many devised," is the ultimate reason why Lincoln concludes, "Impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God." These attestations are not passive acquiescence but, rather, an avowal of God acting in history.
p. 103: The centrality of the Bible in nineteenth-century America cannot be overemphasized. The publication of the Bible soared above all other books. Christians understood the Bible to be the Word of God. Ordinary citizens were confident in their ability to understand the Bible. If in the twentieth century people would argue over the authority and interpretation of the Bible, in the nineteenth, the Bible was fundamentally a personal resource in life and in death.
p. 107: In the West, Bibles bound for General (and Episcopal Bishop) Leonidas Polk's Confederate army at Columbus, Kentucky, in early 1862 were at first stopped as contraband by federal troops at Cairo, IL. Finally, Commanders Ulysses S Grant and Polk worked out a flag of truce for Bibles. Regular shipments of Bibles under such flags were sent south from NY via Fort Monroe and City Point. Secretary of War Stanton approved this measure, and the Norfolk Steamship Company paid all the shipping expenses. As late as December of 1863, in response to a request from Levi Thorne, pastor of the Baptist church at Kingston, NC, the American Bible Society approved a shipment of 100,000 volumes to NC. This flag of truce for Bibles could only be worked out in a culture where "both read the same Bible."
113: According to the letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament, "the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword." Lincoln liked ot wield the Bible as a sword, using one edge to affirm and the other to question. Or, as the same verse continues, to use the other edge of the sword to judge "the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Heb 4:12 KJV).
In this second level of meaning, Lincoln judged "the thoughts and intents" of those who used or misused the Bible or prayer for partisan purposes. Lincoln offered here not only the edge of affirmation , but interrogation. The last part of the sentence, "and each invokes His aid against the other," is not framed grammatically as a question, but it is clear that Lincoln now began a section where he asked questions about both human actions and God's actions.
Lincoln was asking how it was possible for one side to ask God's aid agains the other side. He was not only asking a question, but inveighing against a tribal God who would take the side of a section or party. Lincoln was building a case for an inclusive God. He, who had been discontented wit the sectarianism of the churches, was not happy with talk of a God who was captive to North or South. He had become troubled by those who came to him to say God was on our side. In his Second Inaugural, he spoke out against a tribal God, on the side of the North, and spoke instead of an inclusive God-inclusive, as Lincoln would explain, in both judgment and reconciliation.
(in response to Union losses at Bull Run)
p. 122: That same day, Lincoln put pen to paper in a private musing. A brooding president strained to see the light in one of the darkness moments of 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 [sic] 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 this is probably true-that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his mere quiet 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."
p. 165: Lincoln must have trusted that by now he had forged a bond with his audience. Well aware of their feelings of both hope and despair, he was about to ask his listeners for acts of incredible compassion. He would summon them to overcome the barrier of race and the boundary of sectionalism and come together again in reconciliation.
p. 167: Lincoln's grand indicative was that God had been present in the midst of the Civil War. God's providence is the prism through which he carefully refracted the meaning of the war. Lincoln points beyond himself and his generals to God as the primary actor. His pre0inaugural musings, from the "meditation on the Divine Will" to the letters to Eliza Gurney, and now the Second Inaugural are his attempt to see, through a mirror darkly, God's actions in the war.
An indicative usually included both grace and judgment. "American slavery" was the "offense" that was the basis for "judgment." Was there any grace in the Second Inaugural? The grace or good news is that "the Almighty has His own purposes." This "Living God" was bringing about renewal through the purification of human purposes. For Lincoln, in the intersection of his politics and theology, grace and judgment were never far from each other.
Convinced of God's activity, Lincoln would never speak about God in the language of triumphalism or jingoism. He was always suspicious of visiting church delegations of ministers who knew exactly, where, where, and how God was on their side. He could not be comfortable with those voices in the surging evangelicalism of his day which seemed to o familiar with the Almighty. Lincoln, who did not wear his faith on his sleeve, never spoke brashly about God.
p. 179: Lincoln ended his Second Inaugural Address with a coda of healing: to bind up...to care for...to duo all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
Portraits of widows and orphans now balance the images of blood and swords. Lincoln had defined the signposts toward winning the peace by achieving reconciliation. In this final paragraph, he declared that the true test of the aims of war would be how e now treated those who have been defeated. If enmity continued after hostilities ceased, the war would have been in vain.
These are no maudlin words crafted for emotional effect. The final paragraph is sublime. His words are directed to the tough practical living actions that must replace retribution with "charity."
In this final paragraph, Lincoln offered the ultimate surprise. Instead of rallying his supporters, in the name of God, to support the war, he asked his listeners, quietly, to imitate the ways of God.
p. 185: Lincoln's audience, even when standing in the same location, facing the west wing of the Capitol, was really standing in many different locations. Their social and political locations had much to do with how they heard the speech.
p. 197: What did Lincoln mean about the address's not being "immediately popular"?
...Lincoln supplied his own answer. "Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them." Human purpose, whether of the North or the South, lay in the invoking of a tribal God. His purpose had been to invoke a universal God. He had dared to say that this God was judging the whole nation for the "offense" of slavery. With God there is no partiality.
The issue was, finally, one of purpose. To deny it, however, in this case, is to deny that there is a God governing the world." He had pondered God's purpose in the Meditation on the divine will" and come to the conclusion, "in the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party." In his first letter to Eliza Gurney, he had linked this purpose to God's governing in the world. "We must believe that He permits it [the war] for some wise purpose of his own, mysterious and unknown to us; and though with our limited understandings we may not be able to comprehend it, yet we cannot but believe, that he who made the world still governs it."
202: The separation of church and state in the US has never meant the separation of religion and politics. In words that surprised his audience, Lincoln brought to his address deep theological thinking and argument. But even as he grounds his argument with Biblical moorings, Lincoln speaks forever against any "God bless America" theology that fails to come to terms with evil and hypocrisy in its own house. While the audience waited to hear words of self-congratulation, Lincoln continued to explain the implications of the judgment of God. He knew that the peril of theological politics is the danger of self-righteousness.
Lincoln wrote for all time. Overwhelmed by the decisions and the death toll of the Civil War, Lincoln saw that the issues at hand would not be solved by either emancipation or armistice. As the war drew to a close, Lincoln offered his sermons as the prism through which he himself strained to see the light of God. The refractions from that prism point to judgment and hope.
August 14, 2017
150 years after Lincoln's second inaugural, White delves into great detail and outlines his case as to why this was Lincoln's greatest speech. I think he does an excellent job; I learned more than I expected to about the background and rhetoric about the second inaugural. Having read Lincoln at Gettysburg by Wills, I find it more interesting that in Lincoln's two most well-remembered speeches, he assumes the role of pastor. At Gettysburg, Wills argues that Lincoln is giving a eulogy for the lives lost in battle, and for his second inaugural, White's thesis is that Lincoln was delivering a Jeremaid to the parishioners who gathered in Washington, DC. It's hard not to leave this book without the image of Lincoln the Pastor, leading his flock through the scourge of war into the peace of victory. I'll never read either speech again without that vision in my mind's eye.
If we are to believe Lincoln's notion that God brought the nation into Civil War and dictated the war's course, I think we also have to have faith that Lincoln's elections in 1860 and 1864 were also God's doing, as was suggested by his contemporaries. The more I read about Lincoln, the more convinced I am that Lincoln was placed in the White House by the hand of God. The will of God prevails.
If we are to believe Lincoln's notion that God brought the nation into Civil War and dictated the war's course, I think we also have to have faith that Lincoln's elections in 1860 and 1864 were also God's doing, as was suggested by his contemporaries. The more I read about Lincoln, the more convinced I am that Lincoln was placed in the White House by the hand of God. The will of God prevails.
January 8, 2015
This is a fine book but the title is wrong: for reasons of language, occasion and political importance, the Gettysburg Address must hold first position. But White is correct in identifying the Second Inaugural as the strangest of Inaugural Addresses ever, as it focused more on the concept of Original Sin than the political situation at the time.
White paints a skilled and sadly accurate account of Washington in 1865, full of wounded veterans, freed slaves, and an exhausted bureaucracy -- generally, a city that had waited a long time for the good news that turned the war around: the capture of Atlanta and Sherman’s march through the Carolinas and Grant’s siege of Richmond.
But the Second Inaugural doesn’t dwell on this success as much as the terrible judgment that God has made against not simply the slave owner, but all those associated with the buying and selling of human beings. Only at the end does Lincoln, with customary literary grace, return to the theme of Americans in the present day (“with malice toward none and charity for all”) and the need to bind up the nation’s wounds and work for a better future.
White paints a skilled and sadly accurate account of Washington in 1865, full of wounded veterans, freed slaves, and an exhausted bureaucracy -- generally, a city that had waited a long time for the good news that turned the war around: the capture of Atlanta and Sherman’s march through the Carolinas and Grant’s siege of Richmond.
But the Second Inaugural doesn’t dwell on this success as much as the terrible judgment that God has made against not simply the slave owner, but all those associated with the buying and selling of human beings. Only at the end does Lincoln, with customary literary grace, return to the theme of Americans in the present day (“with malice toward none and charity for all”) and the need to bind up the nation’s wounds and work for a better future.
May 25, 2009
Fabulous! Anyone who is interested in writing per se will find his analysis of Lincoln's rhetoric both on target and fascinating. Indeed, if I were teaching a writing course, I would use this as a text to illustrate how to write effectively, how to grab an audience, and how to write memorable prose. Beyond that, White's analyses of how Lincoln's thinking changed during his Presidency, which are based upon Lincoln's own notes, are a revelation, as is White's discussion of Lincoln's religious views and how they changed as the Civil War progressed. White shows how intensely religous Lincoln was and how deep was his faith in a living God. Of course, anyone with any familiarity with the Bible and with Lincoln's writings can see how influenced he was both by preachers and the Bible. The fact that he never formally joined any church does not belie this, as Lincoln was a faithful church-goer who read the Bible daily.
September 10, 2018
This was a great book on Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural speech! It really sheds some light on why it was such a unique speech because of the rhetoric Lincoln uses and why it’s the best over Gettysburg Address.
I loved how White Jr. writes this book like a story! It was so personable — I could relate to the characters and see them acting and speaking this way in real life, yet they are over 200 years old! That is amazing that the author could do that!
I also admire all the research this author did for the book; there are numerous footnotes and a super long bibliography at the end.
This book also made me think of how history would have changed if Lincoln actually had his second term. He died shortly after his second inauguration speech, which is very unfortunate, but it’s still interesting to think about how history would have been altered if he actually had that second term.
All in all, awesome read and Lincoln is now my fave president. That is all!
I loved how White Jr. writes this book like a story! It was so personable — I could relate to the characters and see them acting and speaking this way in real life, yet they are over 200 years old! That is amazing that the author could do that!
I also admire all the research this author did for the book; there are numerous footnotes and a super long bibliography at the end.
This book also made me think of how history would have changed if Lincoln actually had his second term. He died shortly after his second inauguration speech, which is very unfortunate, but it’s still interesting to think about how history would have been altered if he actually had that second term.
All in all, awesome read and Lincoln is now my fave president. That is all!
June 13, 2015
Of the writing of books about Lincoln there is no end, but I haven't been bored yet! What makes this book interesting to me is its focus on the second inaugural, so the rhetorical and contextual analysis of this great speech appeals to me as a writing teacher. But there's also some history that provides background to various aspects of the speech and its delivery, so there are good stories scattered throughout. White explores Lincoln's theology in a persuasive way. I was just at the Lincoln Memorial at the end of May, where I read the Second Inaugural, every word of it. (Not surprisingly, many US newspapers at the time, including the NY Times, panned the speech, but some people saw then that it would be long remembered and admired.) The speech is really Lincoln's sermon to his congregation, the American people.
March 24, 2011
The depth of meaning in the deceptively simple words of Lincoln's second inaugural address is probably missed by most modern readers. It was missed by many of those who listened to him at the inauguration and by many critics of the day. Professor White goes through the speech paragraph by paragraph and line by line and exposes the beauty of Lincoln's carefully constructed prose. His listeners expected to hear words of personal vindication and wanted to hear how southern rebels would be punished. Instead, they heard words of reconciliation. How different our country might have been had this great man lived!
Humble servant leaders like Lincoln don't exist in our government any more...and our country is poorer because of it.
Humble servant leaders like Lincoln don't exist in our government any more...and our country is poorer because of it.
January 18, 2016
Wonderful little book and well worth the read from any student of Lincoln, American history, or speeches and speechwriting in general. In addition to breaking the speech down, line by line, and examining the history and Lincoln's reasoning behind them, White has a concluding chapter that surveys some of the surprisingly mixed responses the speech received from the newspapers of the day. Many in the North expected something more triumphal in tone and detailed in substance, but instead Lincoln proved yet again to be a better judge of such things--producing what in the fullness of time came to be recognized as the most elegant, humble, and unifying inaugural address in our nation's history.
November 6, 2016
This was an insightful and interesting read. I learned a lot about Abraham Lincoln, how he wrote, what he thought, as well as the unique time, setting, and circumstances of his Second Inaugural Address. It's a remarkable and timeless speech that still teaches and inspires today.
Here are some of my favorite quotes:
"On Friday morning, March 3, visitors crowded the streets of the capital in spite of the inclement weather.... Nothing could hide the disorder and dirt that were everywhere. The national capital, scarcely six decades old, remained an almost-city. Charles Dickens, on his first visit to the United States, in 1842, had called the American capital 'the City of Magnificent Intentions.' He described Washington satirically as 'spacious avenues, that begin in nothing, and lead nowhere; streets, mile-long, that only want houses, roads, and inhabitants; public buildings that need but a public to be complete (p. 26).'"
"One visitor from Philadelphia was irked. 'If you want to be disgusted with the place chosen for the Capital of your country, visit it in the spring time, near the close of four days' rain, when the frost is beginning to come out of the ground. Whatever other objects of interest may attract your notice, the muddy streets and pavements will scarcely escape you (p. 27).'"
"The presence of so many blacks in the inaugural crowds particularly struck the correspondent for the Times of London. He estimated that 'at least half the multitude were colored people. It was remarked by everybody, stranger as well as natives that there never had been such crowds of negroes in the capital (p. 32).'"
"Lincoln insisted that the work on the dome proceed. Continuing the construction on the dome, the central architectural symbol in the center of the nation's capital, came to symbolize that the Union was continuing. For Lincoln, the completion of the Capitol represented his hope that one day all the states and their representatives would meet again to do the nation's business beneath its new dome. As if on Union time, the radiant new dome of the Capitol was being completed just as the war to save the Union entered its final phase (p. 34)."
"The fact that Lincoln put the Second Inaugural in his drawer six days in advance of its delivery matches what we know about his writing. Lincoln took great pains in preparing his most important public addresses.... As president, despite his reputation as an effective stump speaker, Lincoln did not trust himself in spontaneous situations where he was suddenly called upon to speak...When he knew he was to present an important speech, he toiled far ahead (p. 49)."
"We need to understand Lincoln's strategy for the complete speech (p. 52)."
"We may ask, what were the expectations of second inaugural addresses? Granting the distinctiveness of March 4, 1865, how do Lincoln's words compare with the beginning paragraphs of other second inaugurals? George Washington, in 1793, delivered the shortest second inaugural, 135 words.... Thomas Jefferson, in 1805, began his Second Inaugural in an upbeat manner.... James Madison, in 1813, sounded two notes that would become commonplace in most succeeding second inaugural addresses: the confidence of the electorate in the re-elected president, and the importance of the times in which the president serves.... James Monroe, in 1821, glowed with self-assurance (p. 52)."
"Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, and Roosevelt insert themselves immediately into the structure of their second inaugural addresses. There is a marked contrast between the use of the personal pronoun by these five presidents and Lincoln.... Lincoln chose to be silent about thanking the voters for returning him to office. The 'difficulties' that Jackson had been called upon to face seem pallid compared to Lincoln's four years of travail (p. 54)."
"Beginning with a recital of temporal signposts, as he had earlier at Cooper Union and at Gettysburg, Lincoln would ask his audience to think with him about the cause and meaning of the war (p. 59)."
"Lincoln's central, overarching strategy was to emphasize common actions and emotions. In this paragraph he used 'all' and 'both' to be inclusive of North and South (p. 61)."
"Lincoln used one of his favorite rhetorical devices: alliteration (p. 63)."
"Lincoln continued to direct attention away from himself. Instead of saying, 'While I was delivering my inaugural address,' he says in a passive mode, 'While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place (p. 64).'"
"Lacking formal instruction, Lincoln worked all his life to become an educated person. He walked miles across the prairie as a youth to borrow a book to satisfy his love of learning. He taught himself Euclid's geometric principles while tramping around the Eighth Circuit as a lawyer because he wanted to discipline his mind. An earlier intention to lift up Lincoln as a man of the people unintentionally downgraded Lincoln as a thoughtful man of ideas. The recent emphasis on Lincoln as an astute politician should not be at the expense of de-emphasizing his philosophical or theological interests (p. 67)."
"Lincoln grew to maturity in a culture that put a priority on the spoken word. He learned how to be heard in that culture.... both friend and foe came to respect his rhetorical skills (p. 69)."
"In his First Inaugural Address, Lincoln was intellectual and studied in tone. He reviewed the nature of the perpetuity of the government and contrasted it with an association of states. He spoke throughout of constitutional rights and responsibilities. He marshaled evidence to support his position as a lawyer arguing a case. He spoke as if he believed that he could achieve his objectives by rational argument (p. 73)."
"We need to be clear about what we are not saying. The opposite of verbose is not simple Lincoln was not bent on brevity alone. He was intent on precision. Sometimes precision might mean more (p. 76)."
"Lincoln's letter to Hodges, eleven months before the Second Inaugural Address, contains both logic and language that would reappear on March 4, 1865. The antecedents to the Second Inaugural Address are to be found in letters, interviews, and private musings rather than in previous public speeches. Some of this material did not become known until after Lincoln's death. Some big ideas contained in this 'little speech' would later find their way into the opening sentences of the third paragraph of the Second Inaugural (p. 82)."
"What made Lincoln so persuasive? Aristotle defined rhetoric as the art of persuasion (p. 83)."
"The greater the difficulty of the message, the more important that the bond of trust be established between the speaker and the audience (p. 84)."
"I believe Lincoln discerned the mood of his audience as anxious. He had encountered this frame of mind in many interviews. Underneath the ebullience at the realization that the war was finally drawing to a close lay many questions about the uncertain peace. This long war, which continually erupted in tragedy and loss, produced an anxiety about the future. Even as plans were being debated for reconstruction, most knew that important members of Lincoln's own party disagreed with his policies for the restoration of the Southern states (p. 85)."
"Lincoln was deeply concerned that a nation divided in war would remain a nation divided in peace. Would the American people have enough patience for a peace process that he knew would take far longer than the four years of war (p. 86)?"
"Standing behind many great speeches are ideas that are not articulated in the actual words of an address. Standing behind the Second Inaugural Address is Lincoln's fidelity to the Constitution. The word 'Constitution' is never used in the address, but the nature and meaning of the Constitution are present throughout (p. 94)."
"The central meaning was Lincoln's assertion that God was the primary actor in this drama. Lincoln's acknowledgment of his own passivity is his way of pointing to the larger truth of the activity of God (p. 98)."
"Lincoln had now prepared his audience for the resolution of the paradox. Who was responsible for this war? He had led them to a pathway that offered no human resolution. He asserted that the results in the spring of 186 were not what any of the leaders or parties could have imagined in 1861 (p. 99)."
"When Lincoln introduced the Bible into the Second Inaugural, we entered new territory in presidential inaugural addresses. Before Lincoln, there were eighteen inaugural addresses delivered by fourteen presidents. From George Washington to Lincoln's predecessor, James Buchanan, each referred to God or Deity. These references almost always came in the last paragraph.... The Bible was quoted only once in those eighteen addresses....but the lack of precedent did not deter Lincoln. In the 340 words remaining in the Second Inaugural, Lincoln would quote or paraphrase four Biblical passages (p. 101)."
"'Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God' is filled with multiple meaning. Lincoln was acknowledging the universal use of the Bible and prayer by soldiers throughout the war. Before we attempt to understand still other layers of meaning, we will pause to appreciate the use of the Bible that Lincoln describes and affirms (p. 102)."
"The centrality of the Bible in nineteenth-century America cannot be overemphasized. The publication of the Bible soared above all other books (p. 103)."
"The Bible may have been the only book the Lincoln family owned. While he was a young child, his parents joined the Separate Baptist church near their Knob Creek farm in Kentucky (p. 109)."
"Frequently in the White House, Julia observed that Lincoln's big leather-covered Bible rested on a small table in the sitting room of the White House. She had a 'distinct recollection' that 'quite often,' after the midday meal, Lincoln would sit sprawled out in his big chair in his large stocking feet reading the Bible (p. 110)."
"'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 can not 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 adaption to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say this is probably true--that God wills this contest, and wills that it should not end yet. By his mere quiet power, on the minds of the new 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.' This reflection remained unknown during Lincoln's life. Young John Hay, one of Lincoln's private secretaries, found it after his death. It was one of the few Lincoln papers that Hay kept for himself. In 1872, Hay gave it the title 'Meditation on the Divine Will.' The meditation revealed that Lincoln, at one of the most difficult moments in the war, was grappling to understand the meaning of the conflict in a new manner. This private meditation eloquently anticipated the affirmations of God's purposes at the cord of the Second Inaugural Address (p. 122)."
"The important point is, finally, not the attributes themselves, but that these attributes presume that God is a personal being. A 'God' who is 'Living' has 'attributes,' whereas fate does not. Behind Lincoln's words is the conviction that God is ordering human affairs because God is a 'Living God (p. 148).'"
"As the war progressed, Lincoln had found himself struggling more and more with the recognition that evil traveled as a companion to the good. Now, at his inauguration for a second term, Lincoln surprised his audience by asking them o look at the malignancy of slavery that had been eating away at the heart of the American body politic. We can now understand that his chronicling of he events of the war was actually his long look back at the ethical behavior of the nation (p. 150)."
"Certainly Lincoln believed that God had blessed America (p. 159)."
"'I never met a man, who, on the first blush, impressed me more entirely with his sincerity, with his devotion to his country, and with his determination to save it at all hazards (Frederick Douglass, p. 161).'"
"Douglass recalled words from Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address.... 'Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man'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 righteous altogether.' He spoke the words from memory (p. 162)."
"'With malice towards 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 a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.' The first eight words of Lincoln's last paragraph proclaim a timeless promise of reconciliation (p. 164)."
"Lincoln ended his Second Inaugural Address with a coda of healing: 'to bind up...to care for...to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves and with all nations.' Portraits of widows and orphans now balance the images of blood and swords (p. 179)."
"In this final paragraph, Lincoln offered the ultimate surprise. Instead of rallying his supporters, in the name of God, to support the war, he asked his listeners, quietly, to imitate the ways of God (p. 179)."
"'This short Inaugural speech reveals Abraham Lincoln's disposition and opinions more completely than many verbose compositions of his predecessors (The Times of London, p. 195).'"
"Abraham Lincoln considered his Second Inaugural Address to be his greatest speech! With his death, the words of the Second Inaugural quickly took on new meaning. It now represented the central part of Lincoln's unfinished legacy. As people looked back to that brisk March day, Lincoln's words were understood as his last will and testament to America (p. 200)."
"Lincoln wrote for all time. Overwhelmed by the decisions and the death toll of the Civil War, Lincoln saw that the issues at hand would not be solved by either emancipation armistice. As the war drew to a close, Lincoln offered his sermon as the prism through which he himself strained to see the light of God. The refractions from that prism point to judgment and hope (p. 203)."
Here are some of my favorite quotes:
"On Friday morning, March 3, visitors crowded the streets of the capital in spite of the inclement weather.... Nothing could hide the disorder and dirt that were everywhere. The national capital, scarcely six decades old, remained an almost-city. Charles Dickens, on his first visit to the United States, in 1842, had called the American capital 'the City of Magnificent Intentions.' He described Washington satirically as 'spacious avenues, that begin in nothing, and lead nowhere; streets, mile-long, that only want houses, roads, and inhabitants; public buildings that need but a public to be complete (p. 26).'"
"One visitor from Philadelphia was irked. 'If you want to be disgusted with the place chosen for the Capital of your country, visit it in the spring time, near the close of four days' rain, when the frost is beginning to come out of the ground. Whatever other objects of interest may attract your notice, the muddy streets and pavements will scarcely escape you (p. 27).'"
"The presence of so many blacks in the inaugural crowds particularly struck the correspondent for the Times of London. He estimated that 'at least half the multitude were colored people. It was remarked by everybody, stranger as well as natives that there never had been such crowds of negroes in the capital (p. 32).'"
"Lincoln insisted that the work on the dome proceed. Continuing the construction on the dome, the central architectural symbol in the center of the nation's capital, came to symbolize that the Union was continuing. For Lincoln, the completion of the Capitol represented his hope that one day all the states and their representatives would meet again to do the nation's business beneath its new dome. As if on Union time, the radiant new dome of the Capitol was being completed just as the war to save the Union entered its final phase (p. 34)."
"The fact that Lincoln put the Second Inaugural in his drawer six days in advance of its delivery matches what we know about his writing. Lincoln took great pains in preparing his most important public addresses.... As president, despite his reputation as an effective stump speaker, Lincoln did not trust himself in spontaneous situations where he was suddenly called upon to speak...When he knew he was to present an important speech, he toiled far ahead (p. 49)."
"We need to understand Lincoln's strategy for the complete speech (p. 52)."
"We may ask, what were the expectations of second inaugural addresses? Granting the distinctiveness of March 4, 1865, how do Lincoln's words compare with the beginning paragraphs of other second inaugurals? George Washington, in 1793, delivered the shortest second inaugural, 135 words.... Thomas Jefferson, in 1805, began his Second Inaugural in an upbeat manner.... James Madison, in 1813, sounded two notes that would become commonplace in most succeeding second inaugural addresses: the confidence of the electorate in the re-elected president, and the importance of the times in which the president serves.... James Monroe, in 1821, glowed with self-assurance (p. 52)."
"Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, and Roosevelt insert themselves immediately into the structure of their second inaugural addresses. There is a marked contrast between the use of the personal pronoun by these five presidents and Lincoln.... Lincoln chose to be silent about thanking the voters for returning him to office. The 'difficulties' that Jackson had been called upon to face seem pallid compared to Lincoln's four years of travail (p. 54)."
"Beginning with a recital of temporal signposts, as he had earlier at Cooper Union and at Gettysburg, Lincoln would ask his audience to think with him about the cause and meaning of the war (p. 59)."
"Lincoln's central, overarching strategy was to emphasize common actions and emotions. In this paragraph he used 'all' and 'both' to be inclusive of North and South (p. 61)."
"Lincoln used one of his favorite rhetorical devices: alliteration (p. 63)."
"Lincoln continued to direct attention away from himself. Instead of saying, 'While I was delivering my inaugural address,' he says in a passive mode, 'While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place (p. 64).'"
"Lacking formal instruction, Lincoln worked all his life to become an educated person. He walked miles across the prairie as a youth to borrow a book to satisfy his love of learning. He taught himself Euclid's geometric principles while tramping around the Eighth Circuit as a lawyer because he wanted to discipline his mind. An earlier intention to lift up Lincoln as a man of the people unintentionally downgraded Lincoln as a thoughtful man of ideas. The recent emphasis on Lincoln as an astute politician should not be at the expense of de-emphasizing his philosophical or theological interests (p. 67)."
"Lincoln grew to maturity in a culture that put a priority on the spoken word. He learned how to be heard in that culture.... both friend and foe came to respect his rhetorical skills (p. 69)."
"In his First Inaugural Address, Lincoln was intellectual and studied in tone. He reviewed the nature of the perpetuity of the government and contrasted it with an association of states. He spoke throughout of constitutional rights and responsibilities. He marshaled evidence to support his position as a lawyer arguing a case. He spoke as if he believed that he could achieve his objectives by rational argument (p. 73)."
"We need to be clear about what we are not saying. The opposite of verbose is not simple Lincoln was not bent on brevity alone. He was intent on precision. Sometimes precision might mean more (p. 76)."
"Lincoln's letter to Hodges, eleven months before the Second Inaugural Address, contains both logic and language that would reappear on March 4, 1865. The antecedents to the Second Inaugural Address are to be found in letters, interviews, and private musings rather than in previous public speeches. Some of this material did not become known until after Lincoln's death. Some big ideas contained in this 'little speech' would later find their way into the opening sentences of the third paragraph of the Second Inaugural (p. 82)."
"What made Lincoln so persuasive? Aristotle defined rhetoric as the art of persuasion (p. 83)."
"The greater the difficulty of the message, the more important that the bond of trust be established between the speaker and the audience (p. 84)."
"I believe Lincoln discerned the mood of his audience as anxious. He had encountered this frame of mind in many interviews. Underneath the ebullience at the realization that the war was finally drawing to a close lay many questions about the uncertain peace. This long war, which continually erupted in tragedy and loss, produced an anxiety about the future. Even as plans were being debated for reconstruction, most knew that important members of Lincoln's own party disagreed with his policies for the restoration of the Southern states (p. 85)."
"Lincoln was deeply concerned that a nation divided in war would remain a nation divided in peace. Would the American people have enough patience for a peace process that he knew would take far longer than the four years of war (p. 86)?"
"Standing behind many great speeches are ideas that are not articulated in the actual words of an address. Standing behind the Second Inaugural Address is Lincoln's fidelity to the Constitution. The word 'Constitution' is never used in the address, but the nature and meaning of the Constitution are present throughout (p. 94)."
"The central meaning was Lincoln's assertion that God was the primary actor in this drama. Lincoln's acknowledgment of his own passivity is his way of pointing to the larger truth of the activity of God (p. 98)."
"Lincoln had now prepared his audience for the resolution of the paradox. Who was responsible for this war? He had led them to a pathway that offered no human resolution. He asserted that the results in the spring of 186 were not what any of the leaders or parties could have imagined in 1861 (p. 99)."
"When Lincoln introduced the Bible into the Second Inaugural, we entered new territory in presidential inaugural addresses. Before Lincoln, there were eighteen inaugural addresses delivered by fourteen presidents. From George Washington to Lincoln's predecessor, James Buchanan, each referred to God or Deity. These references almost always came in the last paragraph.... The Bible was quoted only once in those eighteen addresses....but the lack of precedent did not deter Lincoln. In the 340 words remaining in the Second Inaugural, Lincoln would quote or paraphrase four Biblical passages (p. 101)."
"'Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God' is filled with multiple meaning. Lincoln was acknowledging the universal use of the Bible and prayer by soldiers throughout the war. Before we attempt to understand still other layers of meaning, we will pause to appreciate the use of the Bible that Lincoln describes and affirms (p. 102)."
"The centrality of the Bible in nineteenth-century America cannot be overemphasized. The publication of the Bible soared above all other books (p. 103)."
"The Bible may have been the only book the Lincoln family owned. While he was a young child, his parents joined the Separate Baptist church near their Knob Creek farm in Kentucky (p. 109)."
"Frequently in the White House, Julia observed that Lincoln's big leather-covered Bible rested on a small table in the sitting room of the White House. She had a 'distinct recollection' that 'quite often,' after the midday meal, Lincoln would sit sprawled out in his big chair in his large stocking feet reading the Bible (p. 110)."
"'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 can not 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 adaption to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say this is probably true--that God wills this contest, and wills that it should not end yet. By his mere quiet power, on the minds of the new 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.' This reflection remained unknown during Lincoln's life. Young John Hay, one of Lincoln's private secretaries, found it after his death. It was one of the few Lincoln papers that Hay kept for himself. In 1872, Hay gave it the title 'Meditation on the Divine Will.' The meditation revealed that Lincoln, at one of the most difficult moments in the war, was grappling to understand the meaning of the conflict in a new manner. This private meditation eloquently anticipated the affirmations of God's purposes at the cord of the Second Inaugural Address (p. 122)."
"The important point is, finally, not the attributes themselves, but that these attributes presume that God is a personal being. A 'God' who is 'Living' has 'attributes,' whereas fate does not. Behind Lincoln's words is the conviction that God is ordering human affairs because God is a 'Living God (p. 148).'"
"As the war progressed, Lincoln had found himself struggling more and more with the recognition that evil traveled as a companion to the good. Now, at his inauguration for a second term, Lincoln surprised his audience by asking them o look at the malignancy of slavery that had been eating away at the heart of the American body politic. We can now understand that his chronicling of he events of the war was actually his long look back at the ethical behavior of the nation (p. 150)."
"Certainly Lincoln believed that God had blessed America (p. 159)."
"'I never met a man, who, on the first blush, impressed me more entirely with his sincerity, with his devotion to his country, and with his determination to save it at all hazards (Frederick Douglass, p. 161).'"
"Douglass recalled words from Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address.... 'Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man'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 righteous altogether.' He spoke the words from memory (p. 162)."
"'With malice towards 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 a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.' The first eight words of Lincoln's last paragraph proclaim a timeless promise of reconciliation (p. 164)."
"Lincoln ended his Second Inaugural Address with a coda of healing: 'to bind up...to care for...to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves and with all nations.' Portraits of widows and orphans now balance the images of blood and swords (p. 179)."
"In this final paragraph, Lincoln offered the ultimate surprise. Instead of rallying his supporters, in the name of God, to support the war, he asked his listeners, quietly, to imitate the ways of God (p. 179)."
"'This short Inaugural speech reveals Abraham Lincoln's disposition and opinions more completely than many verbose compositions of his predecessors (The Times of London, p. 195).'"
"Abraham Lincoln considered his Second Inaugural Address to be his greatest speech! With his death, the words of the Second Inaugural quickly took on new meaning. It now represented the central part of Lincoln's unfinished legacy. As people looked back to that brisk March day, Lincoln's words were understood as his last will and testament to America (p. 200)."
"Lincoln wrote for all time. Overwhelmed by the decisions and the death toll of the Civil War, Lincoln saw that the issues at hand would not be solved by either emancipation armistice. As the war drew to a close, Lincoln offered his sermon as the prism through which he himself strained to see the light of God. The refractions from that prism point to judgment and hope (p. 203)."
January 26, 2018
I remember visiting the Lincoln Memorial and being amazed by the Second Inaugural engraved on the North interior wall. Did the builders really know what it said? For a country that says it separates church and state, Lincoln provided perhaps the deepest theological reflection by any U.S. politician, and something far deeper than that of many theologians.
The Civil War, he suggests, was not so much the responsibility of either North or South. Who caused the war then? Perhaps, says Lincoln, God in his sovereignty did. Perhaps the “offense” of slavery meant that “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.” The two sides spent over $6 billion directly on the war. Over 600,000 died and an additional 400,000 were wounded. Did this equal the treasure and blood extracted from two-hundred and fifty years of slavery? Lincoln did not know. But if that was God’s will, would it not be just?
This was no obligatory “God Bless America” unthinkingly tossed off which “fails to come to terms with the evil and hypocrisy” woven into the fabric of the country along with whatever grace God had given us (p. 203). No matter how just we see our cause to be—and both sides saw it as just and worthy of God’s assistance—Lincoln remembers that the Bible which both sides read portrays God as sovereign while we are not.
If judgment may rightly fall on us all, then what should we do? Should not we all look for mercy, and we shouldn't we all seek to be channels of mercy, even to our enemies? This is precisely what Lincoln proposes with his famous words, “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.”
This is not the triumphalistic chest-thumping that we are so familiar with today. These are the deep theological deliberations of a man who wondered why his country’s mighty efforts had seemed to have so little effect on the course of events over the previous four years. God was sovereign far more than we were in control, was his suspicion.
Many have questioned the genuineness or depth of Lincoln’s faith given his lack of church membership and sometimes spotty record of church attendance. But certainly no U.S. politician has ever publicly embodied the best of Christian thinking and ethics more fully than Lincoln. Here strength of conviction is matched by strength of humility.
In this brief book, Ronald C. White Jr. walks us through the mere 700 words of this speech clause by clause, stopping on the way to give us the historical background and context that lay behind each phrase. I have read a number of books on Lincoln, and I am as pleased with this one as any for highlighting this capstone not just of Lincoln’s career, but of his life.
The Civil War, he suggests, was not so much the responsibility of either North or South. Who caused the war then? Perhaps, says Lincoln, God in his sovereignty did. Perhaps the “offense” of slavery meant that “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.” The two sides spent over $6 billion directly on the war. Over 600,000 died and an additional 400,000 were wounded. Did this equal the treasure and blood extracted from two-hundred and fifty years of slavery? Lincoln did not know. But if that was God’s will, would it not be just?
This was no obligatory “God Bless America” unthinkingly tossed off which “fails to come to terms with the evil and hypocrisy” woven into the fabric of the country along with whatever grace God had given us (p. 203). No matter how just we see our cause to be—and both sides saw it as just and worthy of God’s assistance—Lincoln remembers that the Bible which both sides read portrays God as sovereign while we are not.
If judgment may rightly fall on us all, then what should we do? Should not we all look for mercy, and we shouldn't we all seek to be channels of mercy, even to our enemies? This is precisely what Lincoln proposes with his famous words, “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.”
This is not the triumphalistic chest-thumping that we are so familiar with today. These are the deep theological deliberations of a man who wondered why his country’s mighty efforts had seemed to have so little effect on the course of events over the previous four years. God was sovereign far more than we were in control, was his suspicion.
Many have questioned the genuineness or depth of Lincoln’s faith given his lack of church membership and sometimes spotty record of church attendance. But certainly no U.S. politician has ever publicly embodied the best of Christian thinking and ethics more fully than Lincoln. Here strength of conviction is matched by strength of humility.
In this brief book, Ronald C. White Jr. walks us through the mere 700 words of this speech clause by clause, stopping on the way to give us the historical background and context that lay behind each phrase. I have read a number of books on Lincoln, and I am as pleased with this one as any for highlighting this capstone not just of Lincoln’s career, but of his life.
May 19, 2022
Abraham Lincoln's time as President was probably the worst time for any President. The Civil War tore the country apart and became far more devastating than even the most pessimistic person thought before the war. Lincoln lost friends, he lost his 11 year old son during the war, his wife's grief was so overwhelming that some nights he went to Secretary of State Seward's house for story swapping just to get his mind off the tragedy all around. It is through this grief and the need to explain it all to himself, he became more introspective. He would lean more on faith.
Ronald C. White examines Abraham Lincoln through the text of his second inaugural address. The picture of Lincoln he draws is far more religious than most would assume, but also far more in line with Christian teaching than many of the self proclaimed righteous. He had a general humility about himself and never proclaimed he was more worthy or righteous than others,. Lincoln saw himself as a man doing the best he could to handle a horrible war. He felt like at times something was guiding him.
His second inaugural address is one of the greatest speeches and every president who has followed admits that they knew theirs could never be as good. Abraham Lincoln was trying to explain the war, and then how they would move forward. Since he would be dead 42 days later it is seen now as an obituary.
The speech itself is more of a sermon. White goes into great depth, breaking up the phrases and seeking out what might have inspired Lincoln to write it. The speech as far as anyone knows is a completely Lincoln, without help from others as opposed to his first inaugural. As White examines the origin of Lincoln's thinking of the speech, we are given the possibilities of where the influence came from. Lincoln's christianity is far from boastful and out of line with other politicians in that he never assumes God is on his side. White points out that Lincoln lays out the case that the war is the fault of both sides, and that Lincoln believes by this point God is punishing the United States for the sin slavery.
Lincoln was a master of speech writing, understanding that it needed a cadence, a rhythm to be memorable. Lincoln felt this speech was his best work and seemed to have an understanding that it would be more popular later than at the time. At the time is was generally dismissed. People wanted a victory speech, talk of vengeance and yet Lincoln was speaking about a God that was the judge; that there were no innocents in this war as all bore some responsibility. As the war was ending Lincoln was speaking of a future with peace and forgiveness. A message received with mixed rebuttals. Revenge and malice were not part of his character and he hoped to show America how they could move on without it.
This book is an excellent examination of the influences on Lincoln. What made him the man and President he was. Due to an assassins bullet, we will never know how Lincoln intended to use christian faith, no malice, and charity for all to heal the angry, divided, exhausted, nation and completely destroyed south.
Lincoln's Second Inaugural:
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 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, 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.
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.
Ronald C. White examines Abraham Lincoln through the text of his second inaugural address. The picture of Lincoln he draws is far more religious than most would assume, but also far more in line with Christian teaching than many of the self proclaimed righteous. He had a general humility about himself and never proclaimed he was more worthy or righteous than others,. Lincoln saw himself as a man doing the best he could to handle a horrible war. He felt like at times something was guiding him.
His second inaugural address is one of the greatest speeches and every president who has followed admits that they knew theirs could never be as good. Abraham Lincoln was trying to explain the war, and then how they would move forward. Since he would be dead 42 days later it is seen now as an obituary.
The speech itself is more of a sermon. White goes into great depth, breaking up the phrases and seeking out what might have inspired Lincoln to write it. The speech as far as anyone knows is a completely Lincoln, without help from others as opposed to his first inaugural. As White examines the origin of Lincoln's thinking of the speech, we are given the possibilities of where the influence came from. Lincoln's christianity is far from boastful and out of line with other politicians in that he never assumes God is on his side. White points out that Lincoln lays out the case that the war is the fault of both sides, and that Lincoln believes by this point God is punishing the United States for the sin slavery.
Lincoln was a master of speech writing, understanding that it needed a cadence, a rhythm to be memorable. Lincoln felt this speech was his best work and seemed to have an understanding that it would be more popular later than at the time. At the time is was generally dismissed. People wanted a victory speech, talk of vengeance and yet Lincoln was speaking about a God that was the judge; that there were no innocents in this war as all bore some responsibility. As the war was ending Lincoln was speaking of a future with peace and forgiveness. A message received with mixed rebuttals. Revenge and malice were not part of his character and he hoped to show America how they could move on without it.
This book is an excellent examination of the influences on Lincoln. What made him the man and President he was. Due to an assassins bullet, we will never know how Lincoln intended to use christian faith, no malice, and charity for all to heal the angry, divided, exhausted, nation and completely destroyed south.
Lincoln's Second Inaugural:
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 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, 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.
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.
August 4, 2025
Just as Vital Words Today as When Lincoln Spoke Them
The author, Ronald White, has created a work of great theological, political, and social depth that is also highly accessable even for the casual historian. He also shows with both Lincoln's own words and the words from his contemporaries how Lincoln possessed two essential but rare characteristics, which are completely absent in today's MAGA seduced politicians. These two characteristics are leading with great humility and the ability in that humility to evolve as justice calls us to evolve.
White proves to us that in a speech that was just about six minutes long, when the nation was expecting and even encouraging Lincoln to take a victory lap, Lincoln reminded the nation that God was never on the side of the victorious North or the defeated South, but was to be found in the cause of freedom for former slaves, and that the whole of the nation would continue to bear the cost of having denied this freedom as long as God's divine judgment willed it. And our only response cannot be arrogance or judgement, but only peace and humble service to all who have suffered.
White shows us that Lincoln's Second Innaugral Address also challenges the "God bless America" arrogance of our time as well, because Lincoln successfully uses the Bible itself in his speech to remind us that the blessing of God is found in justice and service to all.
The author, Ronald White, has created a work of great theological, political, and social depth that is also highly accessable even for the casual historian. He also shows with both Lincoln's own words and the words from his contemporaries how Lincoln possessed two essential but rare characteristics, which are completely absent in today's MAGA seduced politicians. These two characteristics are leading with great humility and the ability in that humility to evolve as justice calls us to evolve.
White proves to us that in a speech that was just about six minutes long, when the nation was expecting and even encouraging Lincoln to take a victory lap, Lincoln reminded the nation that God was never on the side of the victorious North or the defeated South, but was to be found in the cause of freedom for former slaves, and that the whole of the nation would continue to bear the cost of having denied this freedom as long as God's divine judgment willed it. And our only response cannot be arrogance or judgement, but only peace and humble service to all who have suffered.
White shows us that Lincoln's Second Innaugral Address also challenges the "God bless America" arrogance of our time as well, because Lincoln successfully uses the Bible itself in his speech to remind us that the blessing of God is found in justice and service to all.
November 28, 2019
This is a wonderful and mostly fascinating book that is not just about the giving of the second inaugural speech, but about history of the nation and the speaker. This is important to contextualize why each idea is included or excluded, the reasons the nation needed this message at this time, how the speech was received, who attended, who was not allowed to attend, the words that have shifted their meaning over time, and most interesting to me, the rhetorical devices Lincoln used throughout the speech to make his points effectively. I loved that part.
Honestly, this is one of those books with too much information. I first thought the history of the American Bible Society was padding to get the manuscript up to the contracted word count until I read the acknowledgements and realized that this aspect fascinated the author and seemed to him essential to explain why so many Civil War soldiers carried Bibles in their pockets or kits. These pages could have been summarized in a paragraph, but fair enough. It is Prof. White's story to tell. I give you permission to skip the bits that bore you and resume reading when the story again fascinates. I shall certainly do this if I read this book again.
Honestly, this is one of those books with too much information. I first thought the history of the American Bible Society was padding to get the manuscript up to the contracted word count until I read the acknowledgements and realized that this aspect fascinated the author and seemed to him essential to explain why so many Civil War soldiers carried Bibles in their pockets or kits. These pages could have been summarized in a paragraph, but fair enough. It is Prof. White's story to tell. I give you permission to skip the bits that bore you and resume reading when the story again fascinates. I shall certainly do this if I read this book again.
December 4, 2019
Extraordinary! While I have read mounds of Civil War and Lincoln volumes, this book takes my understanding and appreciation for our 16th President to a new height. On a personal note, this past year I accepted Jesus Christ into my life and have endeavored to understand His role in my life and ours as a nation. Lincoln, as Mr. White describes, underwent a transformation as our Commander in Chief, understanding through his pre-presidency spiritual life and his Presidential crisis, the truth of God’s presence and judgement. It’s an uncomfortable thought in today’s secular culture to think of Gods judgment. Lincoln, navigating the terrible crisis and consequences of war, arrived at the only conclusion he could. White finishes his book by saying,” Lincoln wrote for all time. Overwhelmed by the decisions and the death toll of the Civil War, Lincoln saw that the issues at hand would not be solved by emancipation or armistice. As the war drew to a close, Lincoln offered his sermon as the prism through which he himself strained to see the light of God. The refractions from that prism point to judgement and hope.”.
Please read this book, now.
Please read this book, now.
August 10, 2018
In March, 1865 Lincoln was to be inaugurated for his second term as President, even as the Civil War whose total casualties were to exceed all American casualties in WW I, II and Korea combined was drawing to a close.
Many expected him to celebrate the approaching Union victory and address, perhaps, retributions to be levied against the defeated Confederacy. He saw nothing to celebrate and his vision for how to heal the nation was expressed so poetically that many missed the wisdom he conveyed. The phrase 'with malice toward none, and charity to all' is the most memorialized component of this short (703 word) inaugural speech, but, White lays out the background and makes clear that the speech must be appreciated in its totality. He lays out the context of the times, the theological and philosophical underpinnings of Lincoln's speech.
This is a very well written book. Reading this it is hard not to think of the impoverishment of political leadership in the past few decades.
This book was a gift from my brother Dick, a Lincoln scholar in his own right. Thank you big brother.
Many expected him to celebrate the approaching Union victory and address, perhaps, retributions to be levied against the defeated Confederacy. He saw nothing to celebrate and his vision for how to heal the nation was expressed so poetically that many missed the wisdom he conveyed. The phrase 'with malice toward none, and charity to all' is the most memorialized component of this short (703 word) inaugural speech, but, White lays out the background and makes clear that the speech must be appreciated in its totality. He lays out the context of the times, the theological and philosophical underpinnings of Lincoln's speech.
This is a very well written book. Reading this it is hard not to think of the impoverishment of political leadership in the past few decades.
This book was a gift from my brother Dick, a Lincoln scholar in his own right. Thank you big brother.
November 16, 2019
Lincoln’s Greatest Speech by Ronald C. White is a masterful analysis of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address. The Second Inaugural is my favorite speech by Lincoln and might be my favorite speech ever given, so this book gave me deep insight into Lincoln’s writing process, his intent, and his ideas. White uses history, literary theory, and theology to unpack the complex themes of the Second Inaugural. He explores Lincoln’s complicated relationship with God, providence, fate, and grace— all of which manifest themselves in the speech. To do so, White uses primary sources that breathe new life into our knowledge of Lincoln’s speech, specifically a short essay Lincoln wrote in 1862 entitled, “Meditation on the Divine Will.” Ultimately, White argues that Lincoln’s theological underpinnings in the speech emphasize his commitment to humility, kindness, and justice. Whenever I’m frustrated with current American politics, I return to Lincoln and his ideas. As such, this book provides a unique and fulfilling foray into America’s indispensable President.
January 1, 2024
I just finished reading this book on New Year's day, 2024. This book was first published in 2002. What an amazing book to read at a time of our history when former Governor Nikki Haley, while running for the Office of the President, is unable to concretely answer the question, in New Hampshire, that the Civil War was fought over slavery, but instead answered more like the South Carolina politician she is. (-Happened while I was reading this book.) Or, at a time when school committees and/or private citizens about the country have engaged in banning books that explain slavery, or discouraging the teaching of it. If you think the ripples of the American Civil War have abated, guess again. They clearly have not. Who knew a 210 page book talking about a 4 paragraph, 6-7 minute, speech would be so riveting? Our Union can stand some revisiting of President Abraham Lincoln, and fast. Yes, I would highly recommend reading this book, even these 22 years later. It may be even more relevant today than when this book was first issued.
October 23, 2019
This is an excellent analysis because it shows how Lincoln in a very lawyerly way demonstrated that slavery and the desire by the leaders of the rebel states to ensure its indefinite continuance by expanding it to the territories brought on the war rather than accept the results of the 1860 election. Lincoln's platform had been to postpone dealing with the certain wrong of slavery into an uncertain future but adamantly to oppose its extension to territories not yet states (because then a Constitutional majority some day to deal with slavery would not be achieved). He spoke in a manner that seems to follow the beliefs of his forbears in predestination, but also casts blame for those who bring on an offense. Tellingly he does not treat the virtually defeated rebels as traitors (nor does he accept the Southern view of the war as just a dispute over states rights). White lays this out quite well but it was Lincoln himself who crafted this magnificent sermon-like speech.
April 29, 2024
I found this to be a great addition to my Lincoln library. It is slim, but still in depth and very well written.
While some parts of the second inaugural are regularly quoted, most often the "malice to none and charity to all" portion, I love White's in depth look at the speech as a whole. He does a great job at covering the style involved, as well as the content. He shows how Lincoln's thoughts developed over time to result in the inaugural, and discusses various people and sources that impacted that journey. Much of this was centered in Lincoln's relationship with religion, both cultural and personal. That topic is often ignored or treated topically in modern Lincoln writings, so it was a bit of fresh air to find it here.
Overall, a great volume on an often overlooked or underappreciated speech.
While some parts of the second inaugural are regularly quoted, most often the "malice to none and charity to all" portion, I love White's in depth look at the speech as a whole. He does a great job at covering the style involved, as well as the content. He shows how Lincoln's thoughts developed over time to result in the inaugural, and discusses various people and sources that impacted that journey. Much of this was centered in Lincoln's relationship with religion, both cultural and personal. That topic is often ignored or treated topically in modern Lincoln writings, so it was a bit of fresh air to find it here.
Overall, a great volume on an often overlooked or underappreciated speech.
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