last speech – David J. Kent

Lincoln Memorial Abraham Lincoln had a busy day, this April 11, 1865. There were meetings, then more meetings, and proclamations (and more proclamations), a pass for his friend, and a request to General Grant. That evening he would give a speech that would cost him his life.

Early in the day he consulted with General Benjamin Butler. Butler seemed to be involved in everything important happening in the war, from the workaround to avoid more bloodshed in Baltimore as northern troops first passed through the southern-leaning city on the way to protect Washington. Then there was New Orleans and Fortress Monroe and that whole business with Butler declaring that any enslaved people who escaped into Union lines would be considered contraband of war, and thus would not be returned to the South. It was this topic – what to do with the freed people – that Lincoln and Butler discussed on this fateful day, just two days after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.

Despite the surrender of Lee’s army, the war was not over. Lincoln issues several proclamations closing certain ports of entry and defining foreign port privileges. He also modifies the blockade of Key West, Florida. The end was near, but there was more to be done.

Ward Hill Lamon, Lincoln’s friend and the current Marshall of the District of Columbia, stopped by the White House with Secretary of the Interior John P. Usher to discuss a proposed trip to Richmond. Now that the Confederate capital had fallen, Lamon was to serve as Lincoln’s eyes for a reconstruction convention. Lincoln writes Lamon a pass: “Allow the bearer, W.H. Lamon & friend, with ordinary baggage to pass from Washington to Richmond and return.” Lamon would still be in Richmond four days later.

The meetings were not over. Secretary of the Navy in his diary describes a contentious cabinet meeting in which cotton trade is the chief topic. Lincoln had authorized some restricted trade of cotton with the South to help northern textile mill owners get back to business, but there were questions as to whether it was aiding the South as well. Meanwhile, Mrs. Lincoln was writing to General Grant that the President was ill but “would be very much pleased to see you this…evening,” adding that she would like Grant “to drive…with us to see the illumination.”

Lincoln may have been ill, but he was also busy putting the finishing touches on what would turn out to be the last public speech he would give in his presidency, and indeed, in his life.

The night before, when news of Lee’s surrender was ballyhooed in the papers, a crowd had gathered at the White House and chanted for Lincoln to give a speech. He begged off, saying the occasion called for thoughtfully considered remarks rather than an off-the-cuff victory speech. When he arrived at the window on the 11th he gave a much longer, and much more serious, speech than the crowd anticipated. Focusing on the newly approved constitution for reconstructing Louisiana, the first former Confederate state to do so. While generally in favor of the effort, he did note that:

It is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers.

Lincoln had been pushing for African American voting rights in private letters to the military governor in Louisiana, but the legislature thought that was too radical for the times and left it out. Lincoln’s pronouncement that at least some African Americans – certainly those who risked their lives serving in the Union army and navy – should have the ability to vote was the first time he would publicly make his views clear. At least one person in the audience found it to be too much. John Wilkes Booth heard Lincoln’s call, and after expressing his racial hatred, vowed, “That is the last speech he will ever give.”

He was right. Four days later, on the evening of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth slipped into the president’s box at Ford’s Theatre and fatally shot the seated Lincoln in the back of the head. Lincoln died the next morning never having regained consciousness.

Assassinated, in large part, because of that fateful speech on April 11th.

[Photo Credit: David J. Kent at the Lincoln Memorial]

Fire of Genius

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum On April 11, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln gave his last speech to the public. In it he called for voting rights for African Americans, both those already free and those freed from slavery. It wasn’t the first time he called for expansion of voting rights.

The speech was occasioned because a few days before Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. Lincoln had just missed being there himself, having returned that day to Washington, where Secretary of State William Seward was recovering from a carriage accident. On April 10th, crowds gathered outside the White House asking for a speech. Lincoln demurred, saying that such a speech should be thoughtful and prepared, not extemporaneous. Instead he called for the band to play Dixie, a song that he believed the surrender demonstrated “we fairly captured.” The next night he again came to the White House window and read a carefully worded speech, silently dropping the pages behind him as he read to be picked up by his son Tad. Mostly he spoke about reconstruction and the “gladness of heart” that the long ordeal of Civil War was coming to a close. But he also made a rather radical call for voting rights for African Americans. Loyal citizens of Louisiana had passed a new constitution but was missing one aspect Lincoln felt important.

The amount of constituency, so to speak, on which the new Louisiana government rests, would be more satisfactory to all, if it contained fifty, thirty, or even twenty thousand, instead of only about twelve thousand, as it does. It is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers.

Through letters and telegrams, Lincoln had privately been encouraging Louisiana to give voting rights to the free and newly freed black population, which made up more than half of the total population. He was unsuccessful in convincing them but felt that bringing Louisiana back into the Union was a step in that direction. Of course, the 15th Amendment would shortly ensure that “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

But this wasn’t the first time Lincoln encouraged the expansion of voting rights. He also worked to ensure that soldiers had a means to vote during the war. Republicans had lost several congressional seats in the fall 1862 elections, in part due to pushback after Lincoln’s issuance of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, but also because there were a disproportionate number of Republican voters in the field as soldiers volunteering to preserve the Union. At that point most states still required soldiers and sailors to return to their homes to vote in elections, a practical impossibility during wartime. Several, but not all, states made changes to allow field voting for the military. To ensure soldiers were able to vote in the 1864 election, Lincoln worked with field commanders to allow leave for those soldiers living in intransigent states to return home to cast their ballots. The election of 1864 is also special in the fact that it occurred at all. Many suggested to Lincoln that he postpone the election because of the war. Lincoln refused, insisting that elections were necessary for the continuation of the Union. He noted:

If the rebellion could force us to forego or postpone a national election, it might fairly claim to have been already conquered and ruined us.

But yet again, this wasn’t the first time Lincoln encouraged the expansion of voting rights. On June 13, 1836 he announced his candidacy for reelection to a second term of the Illinois legislature (he would go on to serve four terms). At this early date, when blacks and women effectively had second-class citizenship, he said:

I go for all sharing the privileges of the government, who assist in bearing its burthens. Consequently I go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage, who pay taxes or bear arms, (by no means excluding females.)

While the 15th amendment ensured the right to vote for black men in 1870, women were, contrary to Lincoln’s wishes, excluded until the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920. [This year is the 100th anniversary of that event]

Abraham Lincoln could be considered today as a prudent progressive, moving progress forward by increments, but steadily. And yet, he moved public sentiment such that we as a nation came to accept emancipation and, eventually, the concept that “all men are created equal” (by no means excluding females, minorities, elderly, disabled, veterans, LGBTQ, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and everyone else). Lincoln didn’t live to see all of these battles won, but he did take what would be considered bold steps for a mid-19th century politician. On this date, April 11, 1865, he stood up for the rights of people once held as slaves to vote.

“It is for us the living,” Lincoln said in his Gettysburg Address, “to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here so nobly advanced.” We must “here highly resolve” to ensure voting rights to all Americans even in this current time of turmoil.

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 specialty 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!