Inaugural Addresses: Lincoln's Second Inauguration
Abraham Lincoln gave two inaugural addresses and both were magnificent for their rhetorical brilliance and eloquence. While it might make sense to deal with them in chronological order, the second of the two, delivered on March 4, 1865, is especially interesting. Lincoln was beginning his second term as President of the United States, a term that would last just six weeks. There were reasons for optimism at the time of Lincoln's second inauguration. Victory over the secessionists in the Civil War was imminent and slavery appeared to be near an end. But Lincoln did not use the speech to gloat. Its tone was one of humility and generosity. In the speech, he sought to advocate against harsh treatment of the defeated South, while recognizing the evil of slavery.
Present in the crowd at the inaugural address were John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln's assassin, and David Herold, George Atzerodt, Lewis Paine, John Surratt and Edmund Spangler, some of the conspirators involved with Lincoln's assassination. Before Lincoln was sworn in, Vice President-elect Andrew Johnson took his oath. At the ceremony Johnson, who had been drinking (he later claimed it was to offset the pain of typhoid fever) gave a rambling address in the Senate chamber and appeared to be quite drunk. Ever loyal and generous, Lincoln assured Republicans that this was a one off, telling them "Andy aint no drunkard."
In his Second Inaugural Address, Lincoln spoke about Divine providence. He said that he wondered what God's will might have been in allowing the war to occur, and why it had grown to the terrible dimensions which it had. He used the biblical phrase, "but let us judge not, that we be not judged," paraphrasing the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:1, "Judge not, lest ye be not judged." Lincoln also quotes another of Jesus's sayings: "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." Lincoln's quoted this passage from Matthew 18:7. He also quoted Psalms 19:9 "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether".
Rather than break down the address, it deserves to be posted fully. Here is the text of the address:
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 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 judgements 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.
Remarkably, Lincoln did not believe his address was particularly well received at the time. Historians from successive generations disagree. Many consider the address to be one of the finest speeches ever given in American history.