[davidboyd] Cool Papa Boyd: Payne and his old man at the Lincoln Memorial

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Posted by Cool Papa Boyd:
Payne and his old man at the Lincoln Memorial
http://davidboyd.org/posts/1176667484.shtml


   Reading Lincoln's Second Inaugural.

     Fellow-Countrymen:
     At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential
     office there is less occasion for an extended address than there
     was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course
     to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of
     four years, during which public declarations have been constantly
     called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which
     still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the
     nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our
     arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the
     public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory
     and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no
     prediction in regard to it is ventured.
     On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts
     were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it,
     all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being
     delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union
     without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy
     it without war--seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by
     negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would
     make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would
     accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.
     One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not
     distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern
     part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful
     interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the
     war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the
     object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war,
     while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict
     the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the
     war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained.
     Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with
     or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an
     easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both
     read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His
     aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare
     to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the
     sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not
     judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither
     has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe
     unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that
     offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If
     we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses
     which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having
     continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and
     that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe
     due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any
     departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a
     living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do
     we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.
     Yet, 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."
     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. 

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