“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds.”
The closing words of Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address are among the most remarkable ever spoken by any leader—let alone a war leader looking ahead after four years of civil conflict that tore a nation apart, divided families, and inflicted untold bloodshed and suffering. Though the war still raged, Lincoln’s towering rhetoric framed an appeal to Americans North and South to look forward to a time when hatred and bloodletting gave way to healing and mutual understanding. It was an extraordinarily hopeful vision, especially given the centuries-old common heritage at the heart of the conflict: Black slavery. Thanks largely to Lincoln’s leadership, millions of enslaved Black Americans were now free, or hopeful of freedom from enslavement. Lincoln’s vision of reconciliation included them all.
The task Lincoln faced during his presidency may be viewed as a kind of vast, complex “negotiation” involving interactions with a wide array of stakeholders with disparate interests and aims. In this mega-negotiation, Lincoln brought to bear a variety of tools and sources of power and leverage, of which military power was but one. Over time, the aim of preserving the Union evolved into creating a more perfect Union by means of what might be called “Lincoln’s Triad”: restoring the integrity of the Union, Emancipation of Black slaves, and, finally, mutual reconciliation on a national scale. Along the way, a major “new” group of stakeholders, Black Americans, would be invited to the table from which they had so long been barred.
When he became president in 1861, Lincoln inherited a fractured Union. Lincoln had long shared the view of “the great mass of mankind” that slavery was “a great moral wrong; and their feelings against it . . . [lie] at the very foundation of their sense of justice.” Black slavery also made a mockery of the principle at the heart of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal”—a point Lincoln drove home frequently. He also believed, however, that as Chief Executive his authority to interfere with slavery was limited by the Constitution. Once elected, Lincoln tried to take a conciliatory tone, urging supporters to “at all times remember that all American citizens are brothers of a common country, and should dwell together in the bonds of fraternal feeling.”
In his inaugural address, Lincoln sought to assuage the fears of those in the South, explaining, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” He reasoned that “the only substantive dispute” dividing North and South was a disagreement over whether slavery should be extended beyond its present boundaries; dividing the country would resolve nothing, but only make things worse. Lincoln concluded with an emotive appeal to a shared heritage and patriotic sentiment:
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Lincoln’s carefully crafted message evoked a natural preference for the reasoned, principled resolution of conflict that he had demonstrated from his early days in politics and his law practice as well as the empathy that became a hallmark of his presidency.
Years before, Lincoln had disclaimed any “prejudice against the Southern people” on account of slavery, explaining, “They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist amongst them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist amongst us, we should not instantly give it up.” Lincoln’s perspective was undoubtedly influenced by his own background and connections. Though Lincoln was fervently anti-slavery, his own wife, a member of Kentucky aristocracy, had grown up attended by slaves; most of her family were Southern in their sympathies.
Lincoln’s overriding priority was to maintain the federal Union, and he had hopes of avoiding war by appealing to Unionist sentiment in the South. Even after the start of hostilities, Lincoln continued to express the view that many Southerners—even a majority—were “Union men.” He was encouraged in this view by developments in northwestern Virginia, where a rump convention declared Virginia’s ordinance of secession void and set up a rival pro-Union government that eventually approved the formation of a new state, West Virginia. Throughout his presidency, Lincoln’s pursuit of military victory never prevented him from exploring other options; the door was always open to rebels who wished to return to the fold.
Meanwhile, slavery remained the unavoidable subtext of the conflict. While Black Americans’ military service for the Union was prohibited under federal law, many slaves and Black free men were pressed into service to support the Confederate war effort.
Although members of Congress urged Lincoln to use his constitutional war power to emancipate slaves, Lincoln initially pushed back. He believed that the public was far from ready for such a move, and he feared antagonizing citizens of border states where slavery was still legal. Adopting a moderate approach, Lincoln floated the idea of voluntary emancipation with monetary compensation to slaveowners, coupled with a plan to offer freed slaves the option of colonization abroad. He hoped that the proposal would draw slave interests to the negotiating table and start a long-term transition to a slave-free economy. But the proposal went nowhere, and the colonization option was widely rejected by freed slaves.
After more than a year of war, the Union had made little headway in suppressing the rebellion. Tens of thousands had died, including Lincoln’s own beloved son Willie. Federal armies in the eastern theater of war experienced a series of defeats that undermined public morale and raised fears of hostile intervention in the conflict by foreign powers.
Lincoln found himself contemplating what he previously regarded as unthinkable—declaring the freedom of all slaves in areas under Confederate control. Although the risks were enormous, much more was involved than the normal calculus of risk and reward. As Commander-in-Chief, Lincoln felt the personal weight of the war’s mounting butcher’s bill and the crushing collateral damage to families, including his own, compelling him to engage in intense moral and spiritual reflection. Lincoln had long believed that “if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong”; here was a way he might dramatically alter the strategic landscape of the conflict by reaching into the heart of the insurrection and attacking it at the source of the problem. Emancipation would also ennoble the fight to save the Union by transforming it into a campaign for a new and better version of America that would finally fulfill the vision of the nation’s founders.
Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation transformed the character of the Civil War. It would help discourage England and France from intervening in the conflict, produce upwards of two hundred thousand Black recruits for the Union in the latter half of the war, and set the stage for the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment guaranteeing liberty from involuntary servitude for all Americans.
Not surprisingly, voices in the South were quick to characterize the Proclamation as official incitement of a slave insurgency and an existential threat to Southern society. Later, the Confederate Congress called for the execution of captured officers of Black troops and for Black soldiers to be executed or sold into slavery. Lincoln became the symbol of an oppressive North, the focus of the South’s grievances—a demonic tyrant of inferior status who by daring to free Black slaves from servitude was effectively enslaving Southern whites. With the fate of slavery now implicitly tied to the fate of the Union, Lincoln’s goal of reconciliation between North and South must have seemed more implausible than ever. The war would drag on for almost two more years while Lincoln strove to accommodate diverse priorities.
Meanwhile, more and more freed slaves and other Black Americans were enlisting in the armed forces, in some cases shouldering arms and engaging in combat. Lincoln expressed strong views regarding the critical role being played by Black troops and the importance of fulfilling “the promise of freedom” with those who served their nation. Throughout the war, Lincoln refused to reverse course on emancipation, and repeatedly made its acceptance a prerequisite to any peace negotiations.
Lincoln also made efforts to re-establish loyal, “new model” state governments in occupied areas of the South as quickly as possible. In Louisiana, Lincoln hoped that a new government would “make a new Constitution recognizing the emancipation proclamation” and “adopting some practical system by which the two races could gradually live themselves out of their old relation to each other, and both come out better prepared for the new,” including education for Black children. In December 1863, Lincoln published a Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction—a relatively generous template for re-establishing state governments. It permitted a “full pardon” to most “participants in the existing rebellion” if they took and complied with an oath to “faithfully support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the union” and to abide by and support the Emancipation Proclamation and related laws. Lincoln also sought to develop a voluntary labor system that he hoped would prevent the collapse of the Southern economy and afford free slaves a livelihood. The idea was for plantation owners to recognize the freedom of those formerly slaves, and by contracts of hire with them, put plantations back into cultivation.
By 1864, Lincoln faced serious opposition from both ends of the political spectrum, with Radical Republicans seeking to impose much more stringent requirements for readmission of states to the Union, while many Democrats leveraged public war weariness to promote a peace platform. In the nick of time, Union victories in Georgia and Virginia ensured Lincoln’s re-election, paving the way for passage of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery.
In his second inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln framed four years of conflict as the foundation for a future comprising a “more perfect” Union, emancipation, and reconciliation. Here Lincoln articulates for both North and South what theologian Reinhold Niehbuhr terms a higher, religious “dimension of meaning” for the Civil War—a heartfelt reflection borne of his own personal experience as leader. He integrates four elements—truth, justice, mercy, and peace—that modern peacemaker John Paul Lederach describes as keys to reconciliation.
Everyone knew the truth, Lincoln explains: Black slaves constituting one-eighth of the population of the U.S. were “a peculiar and powerful interest” that “was somehow the cause of the war.” Neither side expected the war to be so long or costly, or to produce such “fundamental and astounding” results. As Lincoln notes, with irony:
Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other. . . . The prayers of both could not be answered—that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes.
Lincoln then observes that though human wisdom may be insufficient to fathom the ways of divine providence, the war might be God’s way of rectifying the collective national offense of slavery by visiting justice upon North and South. If so, “[f]ondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue . . . it must be said “‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether’.”
Having delivered this sobering prophecy of divine judgment and retribution, Lincoln suddenly and finally shifts his focus—and ours—to the aftermath. Once truth and justice at last prevail, the foundation could be laid for a new, more perfect society built on mercy and promotion of peace:
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.
That day, Lincoln could not know that military victory would come rapidly with the spring, or that he had but six weeks to live. During these eventful weeks, Lincoln urged his commanders to treat their defeated Southern countrymen liberally and honorably, explaining, “I want . . . no more bloodshed. . . . We want those people to return to their allegiance to the Union and submit to the laws.” Lincoln was inclined to “Let’em up easy.”
On the evening of Tuesday, April 11, a vast crowd gathered outside the White House to hear Lincoln speak. Lincoln reflected not on Union victory, but on the future. He spoke enthusiastically about Louisiana’s new state constitution, which not only emancipated slaves but also provided for equality in education for the races. He also expressed hope that the state would give the right to vote to those Black Americans “who serve our cause as soldiers” and possibly some others.
As Lincoln looked forward, he was facing what he had described as “the greatest question ever presented to practical statesmanship”—the re-integration of a society riven by civil war, complicated by the presence of millions of freed Black slaves whose precise status was uncertain. In expressing the hope that all the people of his wounded country could and would forsake hatred and instead treat each other with tolerance, kindness, and mercy, Lincoln surely understood that he might not live to see that happen. The focus of unprecedented venom and ridicule, he had committed what many foes considered the unpardonable sin of elevating Black Americans to freedom, and potentially to full citizenship. One “Lincoln-loather,” a disaffected actor named John Wilkes Booth who heard Lincoln’s evening speech, vowed that Lincoln would never make another talk. That Friday, April 14, Booth made good his threat by firing a bullet into Lincoln’s great brain.
If Lincoln had lived, might he have accomplished his vision for a restored and newly-integrated Union? There is no question that Lincoln had made a good start. In addition to a decisive military victory, the passage of a Constitutional Amendment ending slavery, and signal experiments on reconstruction, Lincoln had taken strides to expand the country and the economy to accommodate new realities. Based on his early efforts, it is likely that Lincoln would have tried to steer a course that encouraged creative improvisation, collaboration, and compromise.
When Lincoln died, so, too, did the promise of building a new, more fully integrated society on the ashes of war—a promise that remains unfulfilled. Those who are moved to embrace the path of reconciliation envisioned by Lincoln, despite all the odds against its achievement, may find inspiration from Niebuhr:
Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.
