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Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address
Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address was delivered on March 4, 1865, during the final days of the Civil War and only a month before he was assassinated.
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
150 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 4, 1865
About the author
Abraham Lincoln
2,043 books1,818 followersAbraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States from 1861, led during the Civil War, and emancipated slaves in the south in 1863; shortly after the end, John Wilkes Booth assassinated him.
Heroic monuments of Augustus Saint-Gaudens include the standing figure of Abraham Lincoln in Chicago in 1887.
Abraham Lincoln, an American lawyer, politician, and man, served until 1865. Lincoln defended the American constitutional nation, defeated the insurgent Confederacy, abolished, expanded the power of the Federal government, and modernized the economy.
A mother bore him into poverty in a log cabin in Kentucky, and parents reared on the frontier, primarily in Indiana. He educated as a lawyer in Whig party, joined legislature, and represented Illinois. In 1849, he returned to his successful law practice in Springfield, Illinois.
The Kansas–Nebraska act in 1854 opened the territories, angered him, and caused him to re-enter politics. He quickly joined the new Republican Party. He reached a national audience in the campaign debates against Stephen Arnold Douglas for Senate in 1858. Lincoln ran in 1860 and swept the north to gain victory. Other elements viewed his election as a threat and from the nation began seceding. During this time, the newly formed Confederate of America began seizing Federal military bases. A little over one month after Lincoln assumed, Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Following the bombardment, Lincoln mobilized forces to suppress the rebellion and restored.
Lincoln, a moderate, navigated a contentious array of factions with friends and opponents from the Democratic Party and Republican Party. His allies, the Democrats, and the radical Republicans, demanded harsh treatment of the Confederates. He exploited mutual enmity of the factions, carefully distributing political patronage, and appealed to the American people. Democrats, called "Copperheads," despised Lincoln, and some irreconcilable pro-Confederate elements went so far as to plot. People came to see his greatest address at Gettysburg as a most influential statement of American national purpose. Lincoln closely supervised the strategy and tactics in the effort, including the selection of generals, and implemented a naval blockade of the trade. He suspended habeas corpus in Maryland and elsewhere, and averted British intervention by defusing the Trent Affair. He issued the proclamation, which declared free those "in rebellion." It also directed the Navy to "recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons" and to receive them "into the armed service." Lincoln pressured border to outlaw, and he promoted the thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished, except as punishment for a crime.
Lincoln managed his own successful re-election campaign. He sought to heal the torn nation through reconciliation. On April 14, 1865, just five days after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, he attended a play at theater of Ford in Washington, District of Columbia, with Mary Todd Lincoln, his wife, when Confederate sympathizer fatally shot him. People remember Lincoln as a martyr and a national hero for his time and for his efforts to preserve and abolish. Popular and scholarly polls often rank Lincoln as the greatest in American history.
Heroic monuments of Augustus Saint-Gaudens include the standing figure of Abraham Lincoln in Chicago in 1887.
Abraham Lincoln, an American lawyer, politician, and man, served until 1865. Lincoln defended the American constitutional nation, defeated the insurgent Confederacy, abolished, expanded the power of the Federal government, and modernized the economy.
A mother bore him into poverty in a log cabin in Kentucky, and parents reared on the frontier, primarily in Indiana. He educated as a lawyer in Whig party, joined legislature, and represented Illinois. In 1849, he returned to his successful law practice in Springfield, Illinois.
The Kansas–Nebraska act in 1854 opened the territories, angered him, and caused him to re-enter politics. He quickly joined the new Republican Party. He reached a national audience in the campaign debates against Stephen Arnold Douglas for Senate in 1858. Lincoln ran in 1860 and swept the north to gain victory. Other elements viewed his election as a threat and from the nation began seceding. During this time, the newly formed Confederate of America began seizing Federal military bases. A little over one month after Lincoln assumed, Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Following the bombardment, Lincoln mobilized forces to suppress the rebellion and restored.
Lincoln, a moderate, navigated a contentious array of factions with friends and opponents from the Democratic Party and Republican Party. His allies, the Democrats, and the radical Republicans, demanded harsh treatment of the Confederates. He exploited mutual enmity of the factions, carefully distributing political patronage, and appealed to the American people. Democrats, called "Copperheads," despised Lincoln, and some irreconcilable pro-Confederate elements went so far as to plot. People came to see his greatest address at Gettysburg as a most influential statement of American national purpose. Lincoln closely supervised the strategy and tactics in the effort, including the selection of generals, and implemented a naval blockade of the trade. He suspended habeas corpus in Maryland and elsewhere, and averted British intervention by defusing the Trent Affair. He issued the proclamation, which declared free those "in rebellion." It also directed the Navy to "recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons" and to receive them "into the armed service." Lincoln pressured border to outlaw, and he promoted the thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished, except as punishment for a crime.
Lincoln managed his own successful re-election campaign. He sought to heal the torn nation through reconciliation. On April 14, 1865, just five days after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, he attended a play at theater of Ford in Washington, District of Columbia, with Mary Todd Lincoln, his wife, when Confederate sympathizer fatally shot him. People remember Lincoln as a martyr and a national hero for his time and for his efforts to preserve and abolish. Popular and scholarly polls often rank Lincoln as the greatest in American history.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
December 31, 2022
I am in DC where I once again read this 703 word and second inaugural address by President Abraham Lincoln, generally recognized as his greatest speech, engraved on a wall of the Lincoln Memorial. I won't go into detail about it here--there are many reviews that do that here and very well--but I'll say it remains to me inspirational for many reasons. I'll just say that it is the very model for healing a bruised and battered and very divided nation:
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.
No victory dance, no rubbing it in the faces of the Confederacy. Solemn and dignified and sad and cautiously hopeful for the nation's future, and written by him, not a facless collective of hired speechwriters. Many blacks were in the crowd, including abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass, and some former slaves. Lincoln makes it clear that the "sin" of slavery was the central reason for the war's being fought.
Forty-one days after this speech, John Wilkes Booth, who was present, killed Lincoln. Having read so much this past year on the killing of JFK (and RFK, MLK), whose life and works honored this speech, it made me sad. I recalled that song: "Abraham, Martin and John" sung by Dion.
Here it is:
https://www.battlefields.org/sites/de...
Here is a photograph of the actual event, where I am told Booth was present:
https://lincolnconspirators.com/2012/...
https://www.battlefields.org/sites/de...
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.
No victory dance, no rubbing it in the faces of the Confederacy. Solemn and dignified and sad and cautiously hopeful for the nation's future, and written by him, not a facless collective of hired speechwriters. Many blacks were in the crowd, including abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass, and some former slaves. Lincoln makes it clear that the "sin" of slavery was the central reason for the war's being fought.
Forty-one days after this speech, John Wilkes Booth, who was present, killed Lincoln. Having read so much this past year on the killing of JFK (and RFK, MLK), whose life and works honored this speech, it made me sad. I recalled that song: "Abraham, Martin and John" sung by Dion.
Here it is:
https://www.battlefields.org/sites/de...
Here is a photograph of the actual event, where I am told Booth was present:
https://lincolnconspirators.com/2012/...
https://www.battlefields.org/sites/de...
August 27, 2018
"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face" - 1 Corinthians 13:12 (KJV)
"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."
I really want to see the new Lincoln movie by Spielberg. Too bad I am poor and busy. So in the absence of enjoying a movie at the cinema I am going to go into detail about one of the best speeches in American Political history and one that, for all its religious language, could not be delivered in our (the USA) current political climate, it's just too honest.
Lincoln's second inaugural address marked a turning point in the war, nation, and within Lincoln himself in a lot of ways. By this time he had seem the (remaining) United States of America through a secession movement, a Civil War to topple (or solidify) said rebellion and led the first national elections through a civil war. In public Lincoln tried to portray the war as simply to keep the Union together, though he expressed privately, as the Confederates did publicly that the right to own slaves and the institution and concept of slavery itself was the real reason behind secession. This speech marks the official admittance about what this war was really been about, which didn't surprise many as the Emancipation had already pass, the 13th Amendment was in the works, and the War was days away from being over at this point.
Now another, more controversial aspect of this speech is its meditation on divine will in a conflict in which both sides think they have it. While this type of thinking was not new, the questioning of it was (and really still is).
"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?"
To understand the magnitude of this one must understand the personal change that was going on in Lincoln's faith at the time. He had been a Deist for much of his life though after the deaths of his two sons he had made a tilt toward Christianity; if not an outright membership, at least an endorsement. This speech seems to show a lot of his theological beliefs of the moment: he believed that God did work in influencing events and peoples beliefs but he admitted he was not sure how God was at work in the Civil War. Both sides claimed he worked in their favor but Lincoln thought that it would take time to know how God worked or if he was concerned at all. It is clear from the speech that he believes that the horrors of the war are linked to the horrors of slavery that Lincoln did feel was an evil institution.
"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.'"
Despite the shortness of length the message is so sincere, sombre, and full of imagery, that it ranks among the greatest speeches ever given in American history.
Now of course there is one more thing to get to. There is only one surviving picture from that inauguration and it is notable for the man who is visible in it with Lincoln look-up above him to the balcony at the white face on the column to the right, it is Lincoln's future assassin, John Wilkes Booth.
"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.
"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."
I really want to see the new Lincoln movie by Spielberg. Too bad I am poor and busy. So in the absence of enjoying a movie at the cinema I am going to go into detail about one of the best speeches in American Political history and one that, for all its religious language, could not be delivered in our (the USA) current political climate, it's just too honest.
Lincoln's second inaugural address marked a turning point in the war, nation, and within Lincoln himself in a lot of ways. By this time he had seem the (remaining) United States of America through a secession movement, a Civil War to topple (or solidify) said rebellion and led the first national elections through a civil war. In public Lincoln tried to portray the war as simply to keep the Union together, though he expressed privately, as the Confederates did publicly that the right to own slaves and the institution and concept of slavery itself was the real reason behind secession. This speech marks the official admittance about what this war was really been about, which didn't surprise many as the Emancipation had already pass, the 13th Amendment was in the works, and the War was days away from being over at this point.
Now another, more controversial aspect of this speech is its meditation on divine will in a conflict in which both sides think they have it. While this type of thinking was not new, the questioning of it was (and really still is).
"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?"
To understand the magnitude of this one must understand the personal change that was going on in Lincoln's faith at the time. He had been a Deist for much of his life though after the deaths of his two sons he had made a tilt toward Christianity; if not an outright membership, at least an endorsement. This speech seems to show a lot of his theological beliefs of the moment: he believed that God did work in influencing events and peoples beliefs but he admitted he was not sure how God was at work in the Civil War. Both sides claimed he worked in their favor but Lincoln thought that it would take time to know how God worked or if he was concerned at all. It is clear from the speech that he believes that the horrors of the war are linked to the horrors of slavery that Lincoln did feel was an evil institution.
"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.'"
Despite the shortness of length the message is so sincere, sombre, and full of imagery, that it ranks among the greatest speeches ever given in American history.
Now of course there is one more thing to get to. There is only one surviving picture from that inauguration and it is notable for the man who is visible in it with Lincoln look-up above him to the balcony at the white face on the column to the right, it is Lincoln's future assassin, John Wilkes Booth.
"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.
December 21, 2021
"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."
I wish we could have a president like Lincoln now!
I wish we could have a president like Lincoln now!
August 28, 2022
Pres. Abraham Lincoln was a politcal geni'us.
"...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...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 anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease..."
But it wouldn't really settle that way without any annulment unless he won the conflict to complete it. It's always the vict'ory in war that decides our world's dir'ection after all.
With this last address in his life he was the "just" and "righteous" winner of hi-stor'y, and indeed he was the one who kept the unity of the nation laying the very base for her gl'ory in the following cent'ury.
"...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..."
"...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...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 anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease..."
But it wouldn't really settle that way without any annulment unless he won the conflict to complete it. It's always the vict'ory in war that decides our world's dir'ection after all.
With this last address in his life he was the "just" and "righteous" winner of hi-stor'y, and indeed he was the one who kept the unity of the nation laying the very base for her gl'ory in the following cent'ury.
"...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..."
October 1, 2017
This speech should be required reading for anyone in the present day who tries to claim that the Civil War was NOT about slavery. President Lincoln's own words in this speech, from 1865, say "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"
April 3, 2019
“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.”
January 8, 2021
One Lincoln's greatest speeches. Certainly one of his briefer ones. The tone is admirable, and it smacks less of the moralistic lecturing that typifies the First Inaugural. Lincoln still has the unfortunate habit of positing the war in terms of the survival of a romanticized and in many ways Hegelian nation. Lincoln's limited intellectual understanding of European romanticism meant that he probably never saw the extent to which this idea could be weaponized against society. Still, he was one of its chief purveyors. The Second Inaugural, however, displays what appears to a president deeply reflective at least of the consequences of his beliefs, if not their rightness.
November 26, 2019
Good.
Well written. Clear, right to the point.
Lincoln definitely had a "gift" of calmness and knew how to express himself.
Well written. Clear, right to the point.
Lincoln definitely had a "gift" of calmness and knew how to express himself.
February 20, 2024
Every member of Congress should read this magnificent and timeless address over and over again!
May 1, 2020
Lincoln's second Inaugural Address is a brief synopsis of the previous four years. He states that he believes that at the outset of his first term in office he was faced with a deeply divided populace. Each side having very definite beliefs in the rights their side asserted. Lincoln states that his purpose was to keep the Union intact and prevent war. Yet at the same time there were operatives actively working against this plan. They were also trying to prevent war by asserting and lobbying for the right to secede. Lincoln states that by allowing this to happen it would inevitably cause the entire American experiment to ultimately fail. Therefore this was a proposition that could not be allowed to be pursued which led to the war.
December 22, 2020
It seems as if Lincoln learned a thing or two after his first presidential term. He opened his first term with a speech that could not be labeled anything less than haughty. But now, in his second speech, he appears to have been humbled by the breaking of the union, the loss of life, and the mistrust the american people had of him. In this speech, Lincoln looked to promise something new. Instead of promising laws and punishments, he promises unity and breaking bonds. Instead of looking for a war, he looks to heal those who were broken by it. It's an interesting thing what a little perspective can do to change a person's outlook on life and humanity.
April 18, 2024
The first thing Lincoln does in this inaugural address is explain its shortness. It is the shortest inaugural address, and I greatly appreciate that length. But the content is amazing as well.
Lincoln lays out the context of the war, his view of what formed it, and the slavery of the US. The way Lincoln talks about American slavery makes you feel like it is incredibly outdated, belonging to ancient regimes. Lincoln evokes G-d in his language, making the speech powerful in its assertion of the Union.
Lincoln lays out the context of the war, his view of what formed it, and the slavery of the US. The way Lincoln talks about American slavery makes you feel like it is incredibly outdated, belonging to ancient regimes. Lincoln evokes G-d in his language, making the speech powerful in its assertion of the Union.
August 6, 2017
Just finished "ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS" by ABRAHAM LINCOLN. This was from the book "THE U.S. CONSTITUTION AND OTHER KEY AMERICAN WRITINGS" and the Audible book narrated by DION GRAHAM. This book also included "SUSAN B. ANTHONY ON WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE (1873)", "CHIEF JOSEPH OF THE NEZ PERCE SURRENDERS (1877)", and "THE DAWES ACT" by GROVER CLEVELAND.
September 10, 2020
"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."
Rest under that shade, Gen. Jackson.
Rest under that shade, Gen. Jackson.
March 8, 2024
As great of an orator as Abraham Lincoln was, this was a pretty pathetic speech. We are all familiar with the final paragraph, but the rest of it was really uninspiring. Yet, you would never know that if you never read the speech.
October 17, 2019
This, Lincoln’s second inaugural speech, is well-thought out, hard-hitting, masterful, and even more succinct than the first inaugural speech of his.
March 27, 2020
Probably the most outstanding speech ever given by any politician in history.
August 28, 2020
Lincoln was dang cool!
Read
October 21, 2020Very pertinent in these divided times. Recommend to everyone.
July 11, 2024
Great writing, powerful message.
Read
October 21, 2020Very interesting
March 16, 2017
The speech notes that the war is going better for the North. Lincoln says that 1/8 of the population consists of slaves. Then he uses his famous 'with malace towards none, with charity towards all' quote (which is a good indication of how Lincoln would have handled the period after the war and the rebuilding of the South.)
The problem I have with the book is that, at least in my opinion, it's not a book. There's the address, which is quite short, and that's it. No context is given, no bibliography on Lincoln, no introduction, nothing. This really would have be usable as an appendix in a book on the Civil War.
The problem I have with the book is that, at least in my opinion, it's not a book. There's the address, which is quite short, and that's it. No context is given, no bibliography on Lincoln, no introduction, nothing. This really would have be usable as an appendix in a book on the Civil War.
March 10, 2017
The famous words: With malice toward none, with charity for all, make this an expended work of politics, but also a literary masterpiece in its own right. This is outstanding. 5 stars, wishing there were more to be given.
Read
May 1, 2023I mentioned in the Lincoln biography review how much Lincoln is a crafty politician. We often want to see him in a kind of mystic and moral light, which is not wrong really, but that sometimes ignores that cleverness. When faced with the question of Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, Lincoln sent word to Jefferson Davis that he planned to resupply the fort with rations and such (no weapons or ammunition) and this forced Jefferson Davis into a corner or either firing on the fort or allowing the supplies through, suggesting a legitimacy of the US government’s ownership. Here we see a similar impulse to begin to plan for the end of the war, which is inevitable, and has been since at least Gettysburg, and imminent, with Grant doggedly pursuing Lee after the fall of Richmond. Lincoln is beginning to try to make the case for how to actually bring the Union back together, knowing that as much as they might deserve it, you couldn’t possibly imprison and hang everyone who you might call traitor. There’s also the fact that all sides seemed to agree that the combatants in the Civil War might well be needed to form a new Army to eradicate Native Americans out West, as many of them would be put to later on, but that’s not present here. Who knows exactly what Lincoln should have been saying or doing. Had he not been killed so soon after this address, and had he served out his second term and been able to provide actual stewardship over Reconstruction than a lot of pain and death might have been avoided. The problem of course is that Reconstruction was wantonly and purposely destroyed in order enact revenge on African Americans, reassert White Supremacy directly and indirectly, and to keep material wealth in the hands of white landowners. The contract labor system after Reconstruction ended was often more violent and deadly (in quicker fashion at least) than slavery because a person’s worth was no longer tied to an investment made. So as hopeful and thoughtful as this speech is, and however much it feels like a movement forward, in a lot of ways it’s an obituary of Lincoln, and of any kind of hope that this country had to knit together the wounds and ties created by the founding through the Civil War.
February 23, 2014
Abraham Lincoln delivered this speech on the 4th March 1865 after being re-elected as President of the United States. The war with the Southern rebels was nearly over, slavery was coming to an end and hundreds of thousands of Americans had died. In this strange atmosphere of sorrow and joy Lincoln delivered this speech.
Compared to his first inaugural address this speech was much shorter and has a more sombre note to it. Lincoln was not a man of revenge. Not on a personal level nor a national one. He had made it clear before that when the war ended vengeance on the Southern states would not be permitted. They were to be unmolested, troops permitted to keep their horses and side arms and return home to their families. Also that the Southern states would be reintegrated with full rights into the Union. He mentions this in his speech.
It is possible to see into Lincoln's mind by reading his old speeches, something I thoroughly recommend!
Compared to his first inaugural address this speech was much shorter and has a more sombre note to it. Lincoln was not a man of revenge. Not on a personal level nor a national one. He had made it clear before that when the war ended vengeance on the Southern states would not be permitted. They were to be unmolested, troops permitted to keep their horses and side arms and return home to their families. Also that the Southern states would be reintegrated with full rights into the Union. He mentions this in his speech.
It is possible to see into Lincoln's mind by reading his old speeches, something I thoroughly recommend!
July 10, 2012
Lincoln re-set the purpose of the Civil War in this address. Of course, it was easier to do now winning the war and testing the purpose out ahead of time. It is interesting to note that Lincoln did what modern day presidents do.
I loved how succinct the address is. How current politicians could learn from our 16th president!
I loved how succinct the address is. How current politicians could learn from our 16th president!
January 30, 2018
Historical Prose to a Nation in Turmoil
Abraham Lincoln delivered this speech after being elected president for the second time. Even though the nation struggled with the woes of war, Lincoln brings hope from the promises in The Bible. A short, but poignant piece of historical prose.
Abraham Lincoln delivered this speech after being elected president for the second time. Even though the nation struggled with the woes of war, Lincoln brings hope from the promises in The Bible. A short, but poignant piece of historical prose.
November 10, 2015
"every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword"
November 23, 2016
A fitting epilogue for a tainted arc in history.
Many thanks to Jeff W. McCalvin for volunteering to read the free audiobook Librivox edition, and doing it with admirable skill.
Many thanks to Jeff W. McCalvin for volunteering to read the free audiobook Librivox edition, and doing it with admirable skill.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews