Search Results for: Emancipation Proclamation

4 Comments

Recapturing Martin Luther King’s Dream

  By ,

Martin Luther King Jr monument, Washington DCMartin Luther King Jr. had a dream. A dream in which “one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'”

We’re not there yet.

As we celebrate Dr. King’s life, and commemorate his efforts, we find ourselves in the midst of many of the same trials faced by him fifty years ago – discrimination, voter suppression, systemic-induced poverty. Many, if not most, of us are still Looking for Martin Luther King’s Dream.

To be honest, it’s an embarrassment to America that over 150 years since the Emancipation Proclamation and over 50 years since the Civil Rights Acts we are still fighting many of the same battles. In some ways it isn’t a surprise; the election of our first African-American president brought to surface the barely concealed weapons of bigotry just as the election of another tall president from Illinois brought to surface the inherent racism of the slaveholders a sesquicentennial ago. It is shocking that it still exists. And yet it does.

These ills aren’t limited to the African-American community. Bigotry directly effects other minority groups, women, LGBT Americans, Muslims, veterans, the poor, and virtually every other person that doesn’t fit the bigot’s view of “the right kind of American.” Often that bigotry is blind to the adverse effects it has on the bigot himself.

With these caveats in mind, the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday is a good time to reflect. President Obama called for this day to be a national day of service, where people don’t just take a day off, they take a day on…giving volunteer service to their communities. Dr. King would have approved.

Abraham Lincoln would have agreed as well. In his Gettysburg Address he advised us “to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.” Dr. King’s dream has not yet come to fruition. It behooves all of us to dedicate ourselves to his unfinished work.

Other MLK-related posts:

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial – Washington DC

Barack Obama, Martin Luther King, and Abraham Lincoln

Martin Luther King Day – From Selma to Nobel

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

Follow me by subscribing by email on the home page. Share with your friends using the buttons below.

 

No comments

May 16th Symposium: “The Legacy of Lincoln and the American Civil War”

  By ,

LGDC logo“The Legacy of Lincoln and the American Civil War”

Most Americans consider the Civil War our nation’s greatest trial and Abraham Lincoln the greatest President. He shepherded the country through the war’s great battles, preserved the Union, and ended the scourge of slavery. But the impact of the war and Lincoln’s legacy extended far into the future, and a stellar cast of speakers in our May 2015 symposium will explore some of the ways in which the Civil War and Lincoln’s achievements set the stage for the United States’ entry onto the the world stage. As the nation commemorates the end of the Civil War sesquicentennial, join us for “The Legacy of Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War.”

Saturday, May 16, 2015

Location: New York Ave. Presbyterian Church

1313 New York Avenue Northwest, Washington, DC 20005 (three blocks from the Metro Center station)

9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

SPEAKERS

JAMES OAKES

THE LEGACY OF LINCOLN

Professor of History at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Received the Lincoln Prize for his book “Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States.” Other works include “The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics,” and “The Scorpion’s Sting: Antislavery and the Coming of the Civil War.”

PAUL QUIGLEY

THE INTERNATIONAL IMPACT OF LINCOLN AND THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

James I. Robertson Jr. Professor in Civil War Studies and Director, Virginia Center for Civil War Studies, Virginia Tech University

GEORGE WUNDERLICH

THE IMPACT OF THE CIVIL WAR ON MEDICINE

Former Executive Director and Director of Education, National Museum of Civil War Medicine, Frederick, Maryland.

EDNA GREEN MEDFORD

THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

Chair, Department of History, Howard University. Co-author of “The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views” and co-author and editor of “The Price of Freedom: Slavery and the Civil War.” Serves on the board of the Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation, the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College, and the Abraham Lincoln Institute. Special bicentennial recipient of the Illinois Order of Lincoln in 2009.

RON WHITE

LINCOLN AND RELIGION

Lincoln biographer and Presbyterian theologian. Author of “A. Lincoln: A Biography;” “Lincoln’s Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural;” and “The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words.” Writing a comprehensive biography of Ulysses S. Grant – “American Ulysses.”

MICHAEL KAUFFMAN

-ASSASSINATION, MOURNING, AND SECURITY OF PRESIDENTS

Historian and author of “American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies” and “In the Footsteps of an Assassin.”

THE LINCOLN ARCHIVES DIGITAL PROJECT

www.lincolnarchives.us

Launched in 2002, the project’s goal is to digitize all federal records created during the administration of Abraham Lincoln, (all executive, legislative, judicial and military) The website is freely accessible to the global community.

Join us May 16th to wrap up the 150th anniversary commemoration of the Civil War. The full day symposium is only $50, an incredible bargain when you consider the stellar scholars presenting!.

Sign up now on the Lincoln Group of DC website. It’s only a week away.

[Cross-posted from LincolnGroup.Org.]

David J. Kent has been a scientist for over thirty years, is an avid science traveler, and an independent Abraham Lincoln historian. He is the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and the e-book Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time. He is currently writing a book on Thomas Edison.

Follow me by subscribing by email on the home page.  And feel free to “Like” my Facebook author’s page and connect on LinkedIn.  Share with your friends using the buttons below.

No comments

Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion by Harold Holzer

  By ,

Power of the Press - Harold HolzerHarold Holzer shows why he is considered the leading Abraham Lincoln expert as he adds to his tremendous legacy of scholarship. The focus of this latest book is Lincoln’s relationship with the press. It’s important to know that the newspapers of the day were highly partisan and often closely aligned with a particular party or candidate. They were also fiercely antagonistic to each other and to the opposing party. If a politician didn’t have a good relationship with the press, they had no compunction to viciously and directly attacking him, and in many cases, making things up.

The book is broken into two main parts. The first spends a lot of time tracking the three main editors of the influential New York press – Horace Greeley of the Tribune, Henry Raymond of the Times (both of whom supported Republicans), and the openly racist James Gordon Bennett of the Herald (who supported Democrats). While these three often are the main foils, Holzer has no shortage of other key papers and editors to add to the mix. In this first, pre-war, part, Lincoln usually is trying hard to get the big eastern papers to notice him, then mostly an unknown lawyer and one-term congressman in “the west” (i.e., Illinois).

The second part focuses on the direct interactions between Lincoln and the press, again focusing on the three main editors but amply filled in with myriads of other newspaper accounts across the now-split nation. Holzer’s adept story telling follows the action as each editor reports, and often makes, the news. Holzer brings to life key incidents in which Lincoln used the press to his advantage, for example, to prepare the nation for the Emancipation Proclamation in a famous letter to Horace Greeley, as well as many lesser known examples.

For a long book – 565 pages of text, with another 100 or more pages in extensive notes – it moves along crisply, at least for people with some degree of knowledge about Lincoln and the times. I suspect some readers may find it a bit too long, but that would short-change the wonderful value this book provides. Harold Holzer’s book is as powerful as the press were during the Civil War. It’s well worth the read.

David J. Kent is a lifelong Lincolnophile and is currently working on a book about Abraham Lincoln’s interest in science and technology. He is also the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and an ebook Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time. His next book is about Thomas Edison.

“Like” me on my Facebook author’s page and share the news with your friends using the buttons below. Also check me out on Goodreads.

2 Comments

Book Review – Lincoln’s Other White House by Elizabeth Smith Brownstein

  By ,

Lincolns Other White HouseAbraham Lincoln lived in the White House from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Or did he? In fact, he spent most of the summer months of 1862 through 1864 – about a quarter of his presidency – living in the Soldier’s Home. Author Elizabeth Smith Brownstein gives us a fascinating, as well as delightful, look at Lincoln’s Other White House.

The book unfolds in two parts. The first part groups three chapters into a sort of preamble as Lincoln’s “long journey to the Soldier’s Home.” Here we find the history of the airy cottage originally belonging to the Riggs banking family but now transformed into a home for aging veterans. We also get a sense for why Lincoln was eager to escape to the home, both from the pressures of constant office seekers and from the diseases and smells permeating the capitol during the steamy summer months.

The second part is split into 15 chapters exploring a variety of issues and people Lincoln dealt with as the war raged outside his doors. Not all of the action takes place at the Soldier’s Home, but the home life is delicately interwoven throughout the stories. Brownstein brings us into the complexities of the Lincoln marriage, his interactions with various cabinet members and Generals, and the importance of his time at the Soldier’s Home during the development of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Along with discussions of Lincoln’s views on freedom and his interest in the tools of war are more unique insights. We see some of the poems on slavery that rose from the pens of such icons as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Herman Melville, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Walt Whitman. An occasional poet himself, no doubt Lincoln appreciated their ways with words. We also get a sense of Lincoln’s favorite storytellers, including the inimitable characters Petroleum V. Nasby, Artemus Ward, and Orpheus C. Kerr (a play on “office seeker”).

Brownstein’s writing is crisp and light. She covers a lot of territory as she hops in and out of key events and interrelationships during Lincoln’s time at the Soldier’s Home. I found it to be a delightful book indeed, and I highly recommend it to readers.

[Note: I read this book after Elizabeth Brownstein noticed that I had reviewed Matthew Pinsker’s book on the soldier’s home. I recommend both books as they provide different perspectives on Lincoln and the importance of his time there.]

David J. Kent is an avid Lincolnophile and the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity. You can order a signed copy directly from me, download the ebook at barnesandnoble.com, and find hard copies exclusively at Barnes and Noble bookstores.

Follow me by subscribing by email on the home page.  And feel free to “Like” my Facebook author’s page and connect on LinkedIn.  Share with your friends using the buttons below.

No comments

Book Review – The Unpopular Mr. Lincoln by Larry Tagg

  By ,

The Unpopular Mr. LincolnThis book, The Unpopular Mr. Lincoln: The Story of America’s Most Reviled President, is a rather extraordinary look at Abraham Lincoln. And a remarkably pleasant surprise given the uncustomary view of Lincoln, as well as the providence of the author. Larry Tagg is not whom you might expect to be writing a biography of Abraham Lincoln.  Some will recognize the name from the music world and Tagg’s band Bourgeois Tagg, or from his many years touring with Todd Rundgren, Hall & Oates, and opening for Robert Palmer, Belinda Carlisle and others. Now a high school English and drama teacher in California, Tagg surprises the reader with his deep understanding of Lincoln and his times. And he tackles an often overlooked and difficult facet of how Lincoln was viewed by contemporaries.

Tagg says that he “found the spectacular animosity against Lincoln irresistible as a subject,” and he shows no inhibition in showing it to us. He is brutally critical and yet fair and respectful, even equitable, in his treatment of Lincoln’s friends and foes. In short, and perhaps contrary to the mythology that has grown up around Lincoln in the century and a half since his assassination, Lincoln was not always looked on kindly by his peers. In fact, many of his peers did not view Lincoln as a peer, but rather a backwoods buffoon incapable of leading the country in its most precarious moment.

As Lincoln emerged onto the national scene, his rivals couldn’t believe that this “ugly, gangly, baboon” could possibly be considered presidential material. That was to be left to the more accomplished (both real and in their own minds) statesmen such as Seward and Chase. While the Republican party had coalesced around the disgruntled members of the former Whigs, the “war Democrats,” the abolitionists, the Radical Republicans, that cobbling together of discordant interests virtually ensured that Lincoln would be attacked from all sides. And attack they did, oft-times viciously. To the Radicals he was an appeaser that acted too slow, to the peace Democrats he was a war-monger, to the southern Democrats and the newly seceded confederacy he was a tyrant. And to the newspapers, which were openly partisan in those days, he was all of the above. Even his own cabinet members plotted against him.

And Tagg lays out all of this for us, warts and all. He documents the letters of General McClellan, who was brashly self-confident, and while he seemed to be good at preparing for battle, never seemed to get around to actually battling (and when he did he failed miserably). McClellan considered Lincoln to be a rather incompetent and classless dolt and made no bones about saying so (at least in letters to his wife). Secretary of the Treasury Chase plotted to push Lincoln aside. Influential newspaperman Horace Greeley tried to get him to drop out of the 1864 election. And those were the ones on Lincoln’s side. The confederacy and the Democrats were even more brutal.

The book is broken down into 32 chapters grouped into four themes: Lincoln’s entrance into the national political scene, his first 18 months in office, the changes in attitude leading up to and following the Emancipation Proclamation, and then the reelection in 1864. Wound into these themes are the key events of the war, which correlate to some extent with the ebb and flow of Lincoln’s popularity (or more accurately, military victories gave some respite from the seemingly constant barrage on his presidential ability). Finally, Tagg leaves us with an Epilogue whose title perhaps explains how we have reached the view of Lincoln that most people have today – The Sudden Saint.

I highly recommend this book as a respectful and scholarly treatment of contemporary adversity heaped upon Abraham Lincoln. Unlike other books that I have reviewed in which Lincoln’s negatives are viewed in the light of current ideologies and biases, Tagg presents a glimpse into the realities of the times while acknowledging the foibles and humanity of all involved.

David J. Kent is an avid Lincolnophile and the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity. You can order a signed copy directly from me, download the ebook at barnesandnoble.com, and find hard copies exclusively at Barnes and Noble bookstores.

Follow me by subscribing by email on the home page.  And feel free to “Like” my Facebook author’s page and connect on LinkedIn.  Share with your friends using the buttons below.

One Comment

Barack Obama, Martin Luther King, and Abraham Lincoln

  By

Martin Luther KingBarack Obama has said that the two people he admires most are Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln. Perhaps this shouldn’t be much of a surprise. In Dreams From My Father, Obama recounts his trials growing up as a young black man with mixed race heritage. While clearly a different upbringing than that of most black men living in America, he did experience the prejudices that were openly prevalent then, and more subtle and covert today.

On August 28th, now-President Obama celebrates the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s historic speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. This year also marks the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, the Civil War act decreeing that all slaves in the South “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” As we know from Stephen Spielberg’s movie, Lincoln then worked strenuously to pass the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing “the peculiar institution” of slavery for good.

And yet, it would take 100 years and another great leader rallying the public to continue the fight to achieve basic civil rights and equality for African-Americans and other minorities. Martin Luther King led marches and boycotts in Montgomery and Selma, Alabama, in Chicago, and on Wednesday, August 28, 1963, in Washington DC he led the march that culminated in his seminal “I Have a Dream” speech as Abraham Lincoln’s seated figure loomed over his shoulder. King’s words that day a half century ago still resonate today.

Ah, but today we are still faced with continuing challenges to our basic civil and human rights. The recent Supreme Court decision striking down one facet of the 1965 Voting Rights Act was immediately followed by several states passing severely restrictive new voting requirements that disproportionately impact minorities, the poor, and immigrants. The election of Barack Obama seemingly raised back to the surface some long-held but more subtly expressed ignorance. It is clear that 50 years of civil rights and 150 years of freedom have not been sufficient to eliminate long-ingrained bigotries.

It is within these circumstances that President Obama speaks to tens of thousands once again amassed in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial. While King spoke mainly from the perspective of African-American discrimination and rights, Obama speaks to the civil rights of all peoples who continue to face inequity in treatment, be that be due to their race, their religion, their gender, or their sexual orientation.

Perhaps Lincoln and King and Obama could agree. What we need is a dream…a dream that our nation can achieve the more perfect union that it has so long pursued…a dream that a nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal shall not perish from the earth…a dream that we work best when we work toward the common goals we all desire – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

A dream, perhaps. But an achievable one.

This is the most recent of a series of essays exploring the nexus between President Obama, Martin Luther King, and Abraham Lincoln. Three other essays are linked by Obama’s references to King and Lincoln in his second inaugural address. They can be read in order following the links below:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

David J. Kent is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

3 Comments

Lincoln to King to Obama: President Obama’s Second Inaugural Address Continues the Push Toward a More Perfect Union

  By

As President Obama was sworn in for his second term he channeled both Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King. In his inaugural address he sought to keep us on a path toward a more perfect Union, walking in the footsteps of these other two great men of history. This is Part Three of my series on inaugural speeches. It is best to first read Part One and Part Two to put this part into context. [I’ll wait again]

Inaugural emcee Senator Chuck Schumer primed us to think about Abraham Lincoln in his introduction of the President. Schumer noted that when Lincoln was first being sworn in the Capitol Dome was only half built. Lincoln insisted that construction continue through the brutal war to follow, and on the occasion of his second inaugural the dome stood gloriously the proceedings, a sign that “the Union shall go on.”LincolnInauguration1861aObama did not mention Lincoln by name during his inaugural address. He did not have to. At least some of Lincoln’s words and deeds are known to most and understood by all. In the most recognizable homage to Lincoln, Obama noted that the Founders of this country “gave to us a Republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed.” Shades of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in which he extolled that the nation would have a “new birth of freedom” and that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Obama goes on to remind us that for more than two hundred years we have done so, though often with struggles against our own demons. Again channeling Lincoln, this time his own second inaugural and his “House Divided” speech, Obama noted that “through blood drawn by lash and blood drawn by sword, we learned that no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half-slave and half-free. We made ourselves anew, and vowed to move forward together.”

Perhaps fewer in the crowd were aware of another reference to our 16th President. Early in his state legislative career Lincoln was a big proponent of “internal improvements,” the building of railways, canals, roads and other large capital intensive projects. As President he signed into law the Pacific Railroad Act, which effectively created the first transcontinental railroad. During his inaugural address President Obama acknowledged Lincoln’s contributions when he said “Together, we determined that a modern economy requires railroads and highways to speed travel and commerce; schools and colleges to train our workers.”

The “schools and colleges” part is also a reference to Lincoln, who in 1862 signed into law the Morrill Land-Grant Act, which allowed the creation of land-grant colleges.

obama inauguration 2013

While Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation that began the process ending slavery and inequality for African-Americans, that process was slow and painful. One hundred years after the Civil War it took the strength of conviction of another man, Martin Luther King, to bring us closer to equality in basic civil rights. President Obama paid homage to King by being sworn in on his bible, along with Lincoln’s, on the day we honored the birthday of the civil rights leader. In a larger sense, the very presence of an African-American man “with a funny name” was taking not only his first, but his second, oath of office as President of the United States is testament to how important Lincoln and King are to our history. Obama captured the spirit of both men and the continuing struggles to achieve that “more perfect Union” as he bound together the common goals of equal rights for all men, all women, and all peoples:

We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.

As both Lincoln and King asked us to withhold malice and work together, so too did Obama end with a call for us all to embrace our lasting birthright: “With common effort and common purpose, with passion and dedication, let us answer the call of history, and carry into an uncertain future that precious light of freedom.”

If you missed them, here are Part One and Part Two.

More about Abraham Lincoln.

Follow me by subscribing by email on the home page.  And feel free to “Like” my Facebook author’s page and connect on LinkedIn.  Share with your friends using the buttons below.

4 Comments

Obama and Lincoln – Second Inauguration Addresses

  By

Abraham LincolnThis is Part Two of a series about inauguration speeches, in particular that of Abraham Lincoln, whose bible was used by President Barack Obama for both his first and second inaugurations. It is best to read Part One here first, then come back here. [I’ll wait].

Okay, welcome back. As I noted in the previous article, Lincoln’s first inaugural address was methodical and logical. And long. Lofty inspiration it wasn’t, but that changed in his concluding peroration in which he invoked the depth of the emotion of the moment, a pleading for all men to abandon the path to civil war:

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.

Four years later Lincoln’s second inaugural address was the antithesis to his first – brief, introspective, war-weary. As we have seen in the movie Lincoln with Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln was hard at work trying to get the 13th Amendment to the Constitution passed, an act that would effectively codify the war-time Emancipation Proclamation. In his first address he was “devoted altogether to saving the Union without war.” But still the war came. Now, at his second inauguration, Lincoln lamented that while “both parties deprecated war,” one of them “would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish.”

The sadness in his words captured the painful knowledge that over 600,000 men died during the war nearing its end, though not yet over. Lincoln ruminated over the possibility that God was allowing the war to continue as penance for the offense of slavery. While he exclaimed that “fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away,” he worried that:

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.”

Finally, with many in the North calling for punishment of the South during the coming reconstruction after the war, Lincoln ends with a call for constraint and compassion.

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.

Unfortunately for the South and North alike, Lincoln’s life was taken and a period of turmoil enveloped the nation. A period that extended at least 100 years until the efforts of Martin Luther King raised again the issues of inequality to the national discourse. And here again, on this day in which President Obama took the oath of office for his second term as President on both the King bible and the Lincoln bible, the insights of Lincoln rise once again to the forefront of the discussion. In the next part of this series I will have more on President Obama’s second inauguration speech and his references to Lincoln.

If you missed it, please take a moment to read Part 1.

More about Abraham Lincoln.

Follow me by subscribing by email on the home page.  And feel free to “Like” my Facebook author’s page and connect on LinkedIn.  Share with your friends using the buttons below.

 

3 Comments

President Obama, Martin Luther King, and Abraham Lincoln’s Inauguration Addresses

  By

Abraham LincolnBarack Obama, our first African-American President, took his oath of office in 2013 on the day we celebrated the birthday of the great civil rights leader, Martin Luther King. Obama was sworn in using both the King bible and the bible used by the man whose Emancipation Proclamation set the stage for freedom and equal rights for all, Abraham Lincoln. The symbolism of the confluence of these three men is palpable. Second inauguration addresses are commonly less inspiring than the first, though perhaps Lincoln offers a wonderful exception to that rule.

When Lincoln gave his first inaugural address we were on the brink of civil war. Several southern states had already seceded, and more were to follow. Lincoln faced the prospect of the Union ending before he even got into office and his first speech to the American people was an attempt to avert that occurrence. It was long. Very long. And like his very long Cooper Union speech of a year before, was eminently logical in structure and tone.

Lincoln first sought to soothe the South’s “apprehension” that the government was  coming for their slaves.  While he personally thought “if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong,” he acknowledged that the Constitution protected both the states’ right “to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively” and that fugitive slaves shall “be delivered up” should they escape to the North [Article IV, Section 2]. Essentially, his hands were tied and the South’s fears that he would end slavery was unfounded. Lincoln said:

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.

Lincoln was making it clear that the Constitution prevented him from acting on slavery where it existed. That “the only substantial dispute” was the question of the spread of slavery.

One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended.

He also argued that secession was illegal and unconstitutional, a view that was affirmed by subsequent Supreme Court decisions. So the onus was on the South for the war. And Lincoln made it clear that it was his duty as President to prevent a rebellion.

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to “preserve, protect, and defend it.”

After such a long and analytical discourse, Lincoln brought his first inaugural address to a close by shifting to an eloquent call for compassion. I’ll continue with that and his second inaugural address in my next post.

This is Part 1 of a three part series. See Part 2 and Part 3.

More about Abraham Lincoln.

Follow me by subscribing by email on the home page.  And feel free to “Like” my Facebook author’s page and connect on LinkedIn.  Share with your friends using the buttons below.