Today we were able to go up into the Lincoln Memorial. As always, it shook me. The monumental statue; the wise face, looking noble, solemn; and today: the words. The Gettysburg Address, of course. But I'd forgotten that on the northern wall is his second inaugural address. Which was all the more heart-rending because of the inaugural speech that occurred the day before yesterday. (I won't even dignify it with the word address, since to my mind it felt more like a stump speech—still!—directed not at the nation as a whole but at the 24 percent.)
So I thought I'd post that address here. Notice that the term carnage, or anything close, did not appear in this oration, despite the fact that Lincoln spoke these words just as the Civil War was drawing to a close. Neither did he gloat or rejoice. His words were heavy with sadness, and with recognition of the unmistakable evil of slavery. It is a staggering, beautiful speech. Mr. Trump would do well to walk up there and read it, slowly, carefully—and then head over to the nearby Martin Luther King Jr. memorial and read those walls (shorter, easier—could easily be tweets). Oh, but right: he doesn't read, not for serious content, just to find out if he's popular. It's beyond "sad."
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 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.
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