When Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office for his second term as president, the United States was divided as never before or since. The Civil War had killed over 600,000 Americans, North and South. The end of the war was in sight, but bitterness remained.
Lincoln could have celebrated the Union’s approaching victory or claimed a mandate for his policy goals. Instead, he adopted a conciliatory tone. He called on both sides to make peace and face the nation’s challenges together.
“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,” he concluded. “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.”
Lincoln’s second inaugural address is one of the most consequential presidential speeches in U.S. history, both for its eloquence and its impact. At only 703 words, it was the third shortest inaugural address in history, longer only than George Washington’s second and Franklin Roosevelt’s fourth. Yet it remains relevant after 170 years.
I’ve always felt that Lincoln glimpsed the future in some of his better-known addresses, including his second inaugural. For example, in calling for “malice toward none” and “charity for all,” he evoked qualities the world would need 80 years later.
After World War II, much of Europe was in ruins. America’s allies, including France, England and the Soviet Union, and our enemies, Germany and Italy, were devastated. More than 50 million had been killed, including the six million European Jews who died in the Holocaust. Governments and economies were crippled.
The U.S. responded with charity and not with malice. The Marshall Plan helped rebuild Europe. There were also private efforts, including a “friendship train,” named for Lincoln, that crossed the country collecting food and clothing for the war’s survivors. In subsequent years, we partnered to create NATO and other alliances to keep the world secure.
Lincoln also called for reconciliation at his first inauguration in 1861, hoping to avoid war. “Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection,” he said, appealing for the “mystic chords of memory” to “yet swell the chorus of the union.”
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, delivered in November 1863, is even briefer than the second inaugural and better known. In just 272 words, Lincoln honored the Civil War dead, called for perseverance, and appealed to a generous vision of America’s future. He looked ahead to the challenge of reconstructing the nation and called for a “new birth of freedom,” words that have inspired generations.
Unlike modern presidents, Lincoln didn’t employ speechwriters. He wrote his own speeches by hand, sometimes asking aides for suggestions but laboring over the text. He preferred simple, direct language, not the flowery oratory that was common in his era.
Ted Sorensen, a speechwriter for President John F. Kennedy, recalled that Kennedy asked him to prepare for the job by studying Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and all the previous inaugural addresses of the 20th century. “I did not learn much from those (inaugural) speeches … but I learned a great deal from Lincoln’s ten sentences,” he wrote.
Lincoln was a skilled writer with a poetic sensibility who deftly used rhetorical devices and biblical references, Sorensen said. But his speeches resonate because his ideas and values were timeless. In today’s divided times, we would do well to take to heart Lincoln’s words, phrases and, especially, his ideas. Showing malice toward none and charity for all is as valuable today as ever.