Program Information

In deeply profound, near theological terms, Abraham Lincoln in his Second Inaugural anchors the hope of America’s future with malice toward none.

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Transcript

Lead: In deeply profound, near theological terms, Abraham Lincoln in his Second Inaugural anchors the hope of America’s future with malice toward none.

Intro.: Dan Roberts and A Moment in Time with Jamestown - Journey of Democracy, tracing the global advance of democratic ideals since the founding of Jamestown, Virginia in 1607.

Content: After describing the gloom and skepticism surrounding his first inaugural, Lincoln launches into the meat of the matter. The war was fought to resolve the great “interest” of slavery that he said all knew was, somehow, its cause. In many ways, the speech was a revelation of his own reluctance and struggle to see the purpose of the war as America’s unfinished business. Slowly, fitfully he had come to see its purpose as bringing freedom to the African and the war as a divinely inspired mission.

Lincoln was most gentle in his treatment of southerners eschewing a spirit of judgment against them and pointing to their willingness to seek God’s blessing on their own crusade. In the end though, both prayed to the Almighty for success and neither side had had their prayers fully answered. In reality, both North and South had conspired over the decades through their complicity in slavery to bring this terrible scourge of war on the land.

Author Ronald White, says that despite the overtly theological component of the speech and “even as he grounds his arguments with biblical moorings, Lincoln speaks forever against any ‘God bless America’ theology that fails to come to terms with evil and hypocrisy in its own house.”

His vision for the future and for the path to reconciliation emerged in the final words. Though he would not preside over that reconciliation, his spirit insured that the Union, re-forged in the bloody crucible of battle, would never again be threatened by sectional animosity.

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 a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

This series is supported by the Jamestown 400th Federal Commission with its International Conference Series on the Foundations and Future of Democracy, see jamestownjourney.org, at the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts.

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