ISBN 0743212983
Lincoln, by his own admission, did not expect to be re-elected in 1864, even a few months prior to the election. But the election tide turned toward him in the waning months of the campaign. Contrary to virtually all his major public addresses, the second inaugural was written out in advance. Surely one of the most eloquent presidents in American history, Lincoln relied mainly on extemporaneous delivery — but not with the second inaugural. Unlike the first inaugural, Lincoln shared it with no one, even though it was completed weeks before the actual inauguration.
In retrospect, it is the most profound reflection on theodicy — the question of how a loving God can be reconciled with evil and human suffering — in American political oratory, with a ringing affirmation of “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” After more than a century of debate about why the war was fought, it is also a trenchant conclusion that “all knew that this interest [slavery] was, somehow, the cause of the war.”
In recent years, historians have probed Lincoln’s faith and his “fatalism,” especially as the war seemed to be grinding its way to its grisly end. Besides his economical prose and eye for historical color, White provides new insight into the religious influences that may have played upon Lincoln during his first term as he sat as a non-member under the tutelage of an Old School Presbyterian minister in Washington. The literary and theological categories of the second inaugural take on new meaning in White’s explication of a likely theological influence upon Lincoln’s thinking.
In the last analysis, however, the truth is that the second inaugural is a profoundly Christian meditation on war, violence, suffering and evil — not only Lincoln’s greatest speech but the greatest oration on divine providence in what he elsewhere called “this almost chosen nation.” Today as the United States ponders what is its role, and as its churches inquire into God’s providence and as the scourge of racism continues to scar the souls of our citizens and people across the globe, we can all read the second inaugural and White’s scintillating commentary with new appreciation and above all, with the prayer:
With malice toward none; with charity toward 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.
Take, read. White’s book will be a source of inspiration and guidance for every Lincoln birthday and for decades to come.
