And Why the Second Inaugural Address Matters Today
As you may have heard, the San Francisco Board of Education has renamed 44 of its schools, deeming people like Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Paul Revere, and even Diane Feinstein (!) to be among those who “engaged in the subjugation and enslavement of human beings; or who oppressed women, inhibiting societal progress; or whose actions led to genocide; or who otherwise significantly diminished the opportunities of those amongst us to the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.
No matter what your political persuasion – and many thoughtful liberals* have criticized this move – it is indisputable that the process was done with little or no regard for historical fact. Indeed, no historians were consulted on the enterprise, which is how you get the Revere blunder.
Paul Revere Elementary School will be renamed because of his role in the Penobscot Expedition of 1779. A gloriously ignorant member of the school board thought this expedition, which was in fact an attack on British naval forces during the Revolutionary War, was an attempt to colonize the Penobscot Native Americans. They didn’t consult any historians – or even, for that matter, Wikipedia – so Revere: you’re out!
* On Twitter, I wrote “Who would have thought the San Francisco school district would find common cause with John Wilkes Booth, Jefferson Davis, and The Confederate States of America in their hatred of Lincoln?” Among the 60+ likes and retweets, most were from people who, based on their Twitter profile, lean liberal
I don’t want to dwell too much on this particular controversy. But if you want to truly understand how broken the process was, I encourage you to read this New Yorker interview with the 30 year-old (!) President of the San Francisco Board of Education. Her inability to even grasp the purpose of the questions, much less defend the Board’s choices, makes for an awkward read.
But enough of that! Today is Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday, and while the SFBE may deem his accomplishments unworthy of having a school named after him, he will always be my most inspiring historical figure. And to honor Honest Abe, the Railsplitter, The Tycoon, the Great Emancipator, I’d like to take a moment to talk about his Second Inaugural Address, as it is a fitting message for these historical times.
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Everyone knows the Gettysburg Address. When the Lincoln Memorial was built a century ago its 272 words were etched into the South wall of the Lincoln Memorial, beneath the word ‘Emancipation’. But across on the North Wall, under the word ‘Unity’, are the 701 words of the Second Inaugural (the 3rd shortest in history; most run 1500-2500 words).
To understand the different political intents of these two speeches, it is necessary to understand the context.
When Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address in November of 1863, the outcome of the Civil War was still very much in doubt. He was trying to persuade a war-weary nation that the extraordinary sacrifice of this Civil War was worth it. That “government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth.” Yes, it was poetry; but it was first and foremost a political argument, forcefully made.
But the context of the Second Inaugural was very different. Delivered on March 4, 1865, the outcome of the war was no longer in doubt. Confederate armies were in retreat everywhere, and Lee surrendered to Grant at the Appomattox Court House 5 weeks later.
So Lincoln was looking to the time after the war. The nation had been through 4 years of brutal war in which 600,000 Americans died. That is more than all of the American wars from the American Revolution to the Korean War combined. And since the population of the US was only 30 million, it would be the equivalent of 6 million dying today.
How could a nation recover from this? This is the question Lincoln sought to address, and one that perhaps has relevance today. So let’s take a little tour through this speech, shall we?.
He opens by acknowledging that things are going well on the military front, while cautioning that it is not over yet (all bold italics mine):
"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.”
He then hearkens back to the start of the war:
"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.”
And the war came. The passive voice in the sentence is telling. He is certainly reminding his listeners that the South was at fault, but by using the passive voice here he is deflecting blame. He is starting the path towards unity.
Then:
"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.”
There is not a word about slavery in the Gettysburg Address, even though it was delivered nearly a year after the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln was a latecomer to belief in abolition - he always thought slavery a moral evil, but for him the ‘paramount object of this struggle’ – the goal of the Civil War – was to save democracy, not end slavery. But now he is addressing the evil of slavery, and noting its roots in the cause of the war.
Here’s the money graf:
“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.'”
The man knows how to end paragraphs. And how to draw on biblical imagery during a much less secular time. He is essentially portraying slavery as our national sin, and the suffering of the war as penance for that sin. I highlighted the last two sentences in their entirety but "until until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword" is powerful stuff.
But why am I writing about this today? Because it’s Abe’s birthday? Of course. To counter the idiocy of the San Francisco Board of Education. Sure. But it’s really for this, the soaring peroration:
"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."
Daniel Day Lewis in Spielberg's Lincoln, delivering the peroration
We live in an angry political time. Nowhere near as angry, to be sure, as the period before, during, and after the Civil War. Not even close.
But Lincoln knew, in his wisdom, that we must "do all which may achieve a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
After Lee's surrender, Lincoln, at the beginning of his second term, was ready to lead his nation to healing. But five days later, on Good Friday, he was assassinated. If America was blessed to have Abraham Lincoln in office from 1861-1865, it was cursed to have Johnson from 1865-1868.
Hopefully we do a better job of healing than Reconstruction America.
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