(8) Lincoln Gives His Second Inaugural Address

   March, 4, 1865, the day of Lincoln’s second inaugural address was cloudy and cold, it had rained for several days and the streets were covered with thick mud and small lakes.   Despite the weather thousands had watched and cheered Lincoln walk from the White House to the Capitol.  They all knew that the war was going very well and unconditional victory was at hand.  Douglass was among those at the parade, but he viewed the thousands without cheering.  He scanned the crowd alert to any trouble, concerned about violence to Lincoln.  Later with Lincoln on the capitol steps and Douglass in the huge crowd, they saw each other and nodded.   Lincoln smiled and pointed out Douglass to the new vice-president, Andrew Johnson who responded with a dark frown.

   Having taken the oath of office Lincoln stepped up to the podium to give his inaugural address.  He pulled his attention away from the crowd and towards the task at hand.  Setting his papers in front of him he assumed his typical speaking posture standing straight with his hands held together behind his back.  The enthusiastic crowd spilled over the capitol steps and onto the lawn.  The only thing to mar the happiness of this special inaugural day was the public drunkenness of his new vice president and the persistent clouds.  Now ready to speak Lincoln decided to continue if it should rain until they pulled him off of the platform. 

   Suddenly a single ray of the sunshine broke through the clouds onto Lincoln.  He felt the comfortable heat.  He looked up to feel more of the sun on his face, closing his eyes he nearly smiled.  Then he considered the irony, he had borrowed a line from the middle of the Nineteenth Psalm for his speech.  The opening line which was not in his address is “The heavens declare the glory of God”.  Until recently Lincoln had been haunted by the appalling thought that he was the leader of a cursed nation founded in hypocrisy and doomed to a bloody extinction.  But now he stood in the sun, this day marked vindication and revolutionary change.  The heavens declare the glory of God.  He almost said it aloud.  Lincoln allowed a small smile and viewed the crowd, now they too covered in sunshine. 

   He gave his second inaugural address.  He spoke to the crowd, to those who would read it from the newspapers all across the country, to those in foreign lands and to those people of the future.

   He did not recite details of recent victories for which the crowd would have wildly cheered but remarked that he presumed recent events were satisfactory.  He tried to articulate a fundamental understanding of the war.   Lincoln said that slavery was the cause of the conflict, something he never would have acknowledged even two years before.  He quoted from and used the language of the bible because he knew it was a language in common to all from earlier, less complicated times.   He asked how two sides in such a bitter argument could pray to the same God and read the same bible.  How could the war proceed even after the cause of the war no longer existed?  Lincoln used the bible to explain the bloodshed.  The nation was paying in blood for the same spilled by the slaves for over two hundred years, “the judgments of the lord are righteous altogether”.  Everyone may not respect Lincoln but most respected the bible.   People would consider otherwise unacceptable concepts such as kindness to an enemy when clothed in the language of scripture.     “With malice toward none, with charity towards all” was an attitude necessary for effective reconstruction.  The distinction between scripture and Lincoln’s words became blurred as he closed; we may “achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations”.

    Lincoln and the country had come a long way.  Until his presidency he had been acquainted with many black people but only in superficial fashion.  The racist views of his background had never been seriously challenged by his experience.  He was against slavery because it was morally wrong, not because black people were equal to whites.  The last four years had introduced him to black men and women of exceptional intellect, culture, courage and compassion.  Lincoln did not wander in the dark forever rationalizing his traditional beliefs even in the face of evidence to the contrary.   He had his eyes open, he learned and remarkably he changed.  He ended slavery by proclamation without compensation or colonization.   He would soon speak about voting for black men.  A famous actor was in the crowd for that short speech and was moved to make his own dark proclamation.