Garry Wills on Abraham Lincoln's Writing of the Second Inaugural

C-SPAN fro Gettysburg - the Writing of Abraham Lincoln

The Gettysburg Address

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania November 19, 1863

The Atlantic - POLITICS

Lincoln's Greatest Speech

Frederick Douglass called it "a sacred effort," and Lincoln himself thought that his Second Inaugural, which offered a theodicy of the Civil War, was better than the Gettysburg Address

GARRY WILLS

SEPTEMBER 1999 ISSUE

MARCH 4, 1865, the day of Lincoln's second inauguration as President, began in a driving rain that raddled Washington's famously muddy thoroughfares — women would wear the mud caked to their long dresses throughout the day's ceremonies. Walt Whitman saw Lincoln's carriage dash through the rain "on sharp trot" from the White House to the Capitol, scene of the swearing-in. He thought Lincoln might have preceded the tacky parade in order to avoid association with a muslin Temple of Liberty or a pasteboard model of the ironclad Monitor. Though Whitman was a close observer of the President, and would shadow him throughout this day, there was no way for Lincoln to recognize him in the crowd.

 It was otherwise with Frederick Douglass. After the parade had arrived at the Capitol's east portico and the presidential company had come out, Lincoln recognized the civil-rights leader from Douglass's earlier visits to the White House. He pointed him out to Andrew Johnson, who had just been sworn in as Vice President in the Senate chamber. Douglass thought Johnson looked drunk, but did not know what a fool the Tennessean had made of himself after taking the oath. After Johnson had given a rambling and slurred speech attacking privilege, he melodramatically waved the Bible in the air and passionately kissed it. Benjamin Butler, of Massachusetts, who later led the impeachment effort against Johnson, said in a public speech that the Vice President "slobbered the Holy Book with a drunken kiss." Lincoln, who studiously avoided looking up during Johnson's odd performance in the Senate, quietly told the parade marshal, "Do not let Johnson speak outside." Perhaps Lincoln was trying to be compensatorily reassuring when he made conversation with Johnson by pointing out Douglass. But Johnson's disoriented sullenness came out as pure hate when this former slave owner looked at the escaped slave who was now a celebrity. Douglass recorded the instant.

The first expression which came to [Vice President Andrew Johnson's] face, and which I think was the true index of his heart, was one of bitter contempt and aversion. Seeing that I observed him, he tried to assume a more friendly appearance, but it was too late; it is useless to close the door when all within has been seen. 

Much of future tragedy could be glimpsed in that silent exchange of glances — and much of the problem Lincoln faced in framing a speech for this occasion.

READ MORE - excellent article - Gary Wills also highlights the lyrical poetry of Lincoln.

The Gettysburg Address called people to be dedicated to "the great task remaining before us." The last sentence of the Second Inaugural supplied the moral music, as it were, with which the nation must "finish the work we are in."

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.

Long as this sentence is, it is simple in structure, gliding down from the heights of the preceding period. Instead of the complex interconnections of the other long sentences, which have an internal dialectic, this one begins with simple anaphora in the three opening phrases (with/with/with), and then lines up four infinitives (to finish/to bind/to care/to do), the last one expanded into a coda. The tone is supplicating, like the sighing replications of a litany.