Posted on 03/04/2015 9:24:56 PM PST by iowamark
“With malice toward none; with charity for all…” It was a civic gesture as unexpected then as it is needed now.
One hundred and fifty years ago today, Abraham Lincoln stood on the eastern portico of the U.S. Capitol and delivered a few words—703, to be precise—at his Second Inaugural. The speech remains the most celebrated inaugural address in our history. Fredrick Douglass, not always an admirer of Lincoln, called it a “sacred effort.” Lincoln himself acknowledged it was filled with “lots of wisdom” and predicted it would “wear as well as—perhaps even better than—any thing I have produced.” From an otherwise self-deprecating man who had already authored the instantly classic Gettysburg Address, this is no small admission.
The morning Lincoln spoke, Washington, DC was awash in mud from several days of rain, and the skies remained grimly overcast. Yet, as Lincoln stepped forward to speak, a brilliant ray of sunshine burst through the clouds. Chief Justice Chase, among many others, saw it as “an auspicious omen of the dispersion of the clouds of war and the restoration of the clear sun light of prosperous peace.” There were good reasons for such an interpretation. With Robert E. Lee and his forces trapped near Richmond, Virginia, the downfall of the Confederacy’s capital city, largest army, and best general was imminent. The bloody, bitter ordeal of civil war finally appeared to be over, and everyone sensed it.
Despite these most confident circumstances, the war-weary Lincoln addressed his audience—many of whom were no doubt still grieving the loss of a son, a brother, a husband, or a friend—and gave no soothing prediction of the end of military action, no cathartic attack on Southern secessionists, no cheering vindication of his long-ridiculed leadership, and no promising plan for the future...
(Excerpt) Read more at thepublicdiscourse.com ...
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
—Abraham Lincoln
“Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties. And not to Democrats alone do I make this appeal, but to all who love these great and true principles.
—Abraham Lincoln
“The people — the people — are the rightful masters of both congresses, and courts — not to overthrow the constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it.”
—Abraham Lincoln
Sesquicentennial is one of those very important terms that is best seen and read, vs spoken aloud. I have never heard this word used out loud.
...
“With malice toward none...”
...except the hundreds of thousands of innocents his generals had just killed in the South. As a proportion of the population today, it’s millions.
A speech can’t take away these blunders. No other nation required a war to end slavery. The amount of money the union spent on the war could have bought the freedom of every slave.
Sorry, but the Gettysburg Address must be listed as his best speech.
This is second. Profound literature and some of the most eloquent words any human has spoken.
+1
"Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained."
Best Speech:
Wouldn’t a play be just dandy!
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.”
I think the Southerners had a lot to do with that as well.
No other nation required a war to end slavery.
No other nation has a large section willing to go to war to protect slavery.
The amount of money the union spent on the war could have bought the freedom of every slave.
In retrospect that's probably true. But it's also irrelevant because there was no desire in the South to end slavery, either through compensated means or any other.
Popular opinion agrees with you. But my personal preference agrees with this article. Lincoln was our most eloquent president, and I truly believe his second inaugural address was his best speech. I think his farewell to the people of Springfield is number two and the Gettysburg address a close third.
"How then shall we perform it?--At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?-- Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!--All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."
How about his farewell speech to his wife and kids when he abandoned the train they were riding on because he feared the train would be attacked?
ML/NJ
How can you have a speech on something that didn't happen?
History is beautiful, if you ignore the things you don't like.
Read up on the Baltimore Plot. (But don't look for it in the index of most Lincoln biographies; unless they are biographies of Mary Todd.)
ML/NJ
Or if you make things up as you go along. Mary Lincoln and the children remained in Harrisbug while Lincoln traveled to D.C. The were perfectly safe in Pennsylvania, and didn't leave for Washington until several hours after Lincoln had arrived and after he'd been seen publicly in the city.
(But don't look for it in the index of most Lincoln biographies; unless they are biographies of Mary Todd.)
Like this one? Link
It’s too bad that south chose to go to war and cause the loss of all those soldiers. BTW: the south refused to entertain the notion of a federal slave “buy-back” program.
That’s a fairly cheap shot. FReepers can, and do better. How about you?
God bless Abraham Lincoln, a fine man and President. And may God damn the party of treason, the democratic party.
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