“He was merciful and profound, and it was not necessary for him to read the history of the world to know that liberty and slavery could not live in the same nation, or in the same brain. Lincoln was a statesman. And there is this difference between a politician and a statesman. A politician schemes and works in every way to make the people do something for him. A statesman wishes to do something for the people. With him place and power are means to an end, and the end is the good of his country.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, “Abraham Lincoln: A Lecture”
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On the afternoon of March 4, 1865, Washington, D.C. was a metropolis of mud. The streets of the nation’s capital, unpaved in that era, transformed into a dirty slurry of earth and waste that stopped carriages in their tracks. Ladies in flowing white dresses found their garments stained brown by the end of the day, requiring a change of clothes. It was also bitterly cold from the wind and rain that blanketed the epicenter of the United States. Despite the decrepit conditions, thousands had arrived for a momentous occasion, one that occurred every four years: the inauguration of a president. For this inaugural, on the eve of the end of the Civil War, many more attended than the one that preceded it. And at the center of this whirlwind was the man who had been reelected to the presidency, whose leadership during the darkest days of the republic guaranteed his place in history: Abraham Lincoln.
Standing at the dais on that March day, surrounded by thousands, was the 16th president—a figure whose ubiquity in that time appears confounding to us today. In our time, your appearance is considered just as important as your message. By contrast, Lincoln’s features stood out in all the wrong ways. Never traditionally-handsome, the six-foot-four-inch Lincoln was a gangly, thin man with harsh features: the large hands, nose, and ears; the coarse, unruly black hair; and a high-pitched voice that could pierce the ears of his listeners. He knew his physical limitations. When responding to accusations of being two-faced, he is reported to have said, “If I had another face, do you think I'd wear this one?” But those limitations came to be his strengths, for his voice was, as Gore Vidal wrote, “as clear and firm as a tenor trumpet, each syllable as clearly pronounced as if it were chiselled on stone.” And on this day, his second inauguration as President of the United States, his tenor trumpet gave a speech that would become scripture in America’s democratic tradition.
Lincoln’s second inaugural address, as writer William Zinsser would remark, was “a marvel of economy” at only 701 words, “505 are words of one syllable and 122 are words of two syllables.” Given the impending close of the Civil War, with the Union’s victory almost assured, Lincoln could’ve given a speech celebrating the Union, even gloating about his triumph. But he didn’t. Instead, he delivered a homily to his nation about the causes of the Civil War, the judgements of the Almighty, and the prospects for peace. The question for all of us, 160 years later, is why?
The answer to that question lay in Lincoln’s politics of humility. He was a man who never let his confidence outpace his competence, a trait our modern political leaders seem to lack. In our time, we have politicians who claim they can “make America great again,” or “heal the soul of the nation.” These are enormous claims, which the public mostly recognize as mere rhetoric. Our body politic should realize, like Lincoln did, that no one person can change everything. As Lincoln biographer Jon Meacham wrote, “Lincoln kept America's democratic project alive. He did not do so alone. Innumerable ordinary people made sacrifices, even unto death, to preserve the Union against the designs of the rebel South.” Hundreds of thousands of soldiers died in the Civil War, with thousands more wounded and disabled. Not to mention the generations of abolitionists who put their reputations, and their lives, on the line for the cause of ending slavery. Lincoln knew his place in the grand drama was but one part, even if it was a substantial one.
To comprehend Lincoln’s politics of humility, we must go back to the beginning. Born February 12, 1809 near Hogdenville, Kentucky, Abraham Lincoln grew up in conditions he described using Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in Country Churchyard”: “the short and simple annals of the poor.” He had but little formal education on the frontier in Kentucky and later Indiana, the latter his residence from the age of 7 until 21. In his youth, young Abraham served as a hired hand for his father, which meant that he never saw the proceeds from his own work, a circumstance that likely influenced his own feelings about slavery. He also grew up in the milieu of the Baptist religious tradition, especially of those Baptists who abhorred slavery. Lincoln’s own notions of morality, humility, and providence stem from these early religious experiences. And from his father he gained a love of storytelling, and more importantly, an interest in politics.
He arrived in Illinois around 1830, and quickly set his sights upon winning elected office. On March 9, 1832, he published a notice entitled “To the People of Sangamo County,” where he laid out his political philosophy and ambitions for a seat in the Illinois legislature. After articulating his political programme, which mostly centered on building canals (what were then called “internal improvements”), Lincoln concluded with a passage that lay at the heart of his political humility. “Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.” That word, ambition, is most important in understanding Lincoln. He was a severely ambitious man who yearned to rise from his humble station in life towards something better, something grander. And yet, his ambition was not to gain prestige through the shortcuts of avarice and notoriety. He wanted to, as he said, render himself “worthy of their esteem.” Proper humility is not based upon a lack of ambition, but is an ambition tempered by the desire to do good works for others. This lesson is sorely needed today.
Thirty-three years later, Lincoln stood at the zenith of American political life as the nation’s commander-in-chief. After numerous defeats in public life, from losing reelection to congress in the 1840s to two failed campaigns for the U.S. Senate in the 1850s, Lincoln had emerged triumphant against all of his rivals. Yet, in his second inaugural address, Lincoln sought to bring people together and educate them on the role of providence in human affairs. “Fellow countrymen,” he began:
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 this great contest which is of primary concern to the nation as a whole, little that is new could be presented.
In his opening, Lincoln intended to save his listeners time, and likely anguish, by avoiding a long explanation of the war and its consequences for the country. The people listening that day knew full-well the toll of the war on the nation—with tens of thousands dead, families divided, and towns turned to ash. It seemed futile for Lincoln to rehash all that came before, and so he avoided it.
He also neglected to claim victory at the outset, saying, “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.” Lincoln decided against declaring the war over and instead encouraged others to have hope that the conflict would come to a resolution satisfactory to their fellow citizens. Other politicians in American history have boasted of victories well before they actually occurred. President George W. Bush, on an aircraft carrier in 2003 emblazoned with the words “mission accomplished,” prematurely declared victory against Iraq, only to be humbled quickly thereafter by an insurgency that dragged out the war for years. Lincoln refused to make that mistake, and in his refusal underscored his commitment to humility.
There was one aspect of the war that Lincoln did want to clearly articulate that day: that its ultimate cause was slavery. “One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it,” Lincoln said. “These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war.” In this declaration, an American president acknowledged that the Civil War was not merely about states’ rights or the economic differences between the north and the south. It was chiefly about the bondage of millions of human beings whose lives were annihilated by the drudgery of involuntary labor.
Throughout his career, Lincoln had taken a compromising approach to slavery, in the model of his political hero, U.S. Senator Henry Clay. While he vehemently argued its immorality, he also desired gradual, compensated emancipation. When the circumstances of the Civil War tore those plans asunder, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all those enslaved in the rebel states under military authority, and later signed the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, banning slavery in America for good. It took a lot of courage, and humility, for Lincoln to recognize that a gradual approach to abolition couldn’t work and that decisive action on the issue was needed. As historian Greg Weiner has observed, genuine prudence requires “having the capacity of judgment that can distinguish between ordinary moments and genuine crises and, in either case, calibrating action to proper goals.” Lincoln’s steadfast devotion to prudence, itself informed by humility, ensured a swift but resolute end to the most egregious aspect of the American story.
It is here that we must consider the religious themes of Lincoln’s second inaugural; without a proper understanding of Lincoln’s view of God, faith, and fate we cannot understand the speech at all. Lincoln was not a traditional Christian. In fact, he never officially joined a church in his lifetime. Nevertheless, Lincoln had a complicated, unorthodox view of religion that he used as a means to communicate with others about the bigger issues at stake during the Civil War.
As mentioned before, Lincoln grew up in the primitive Baptist tradition, one that took the role of providence seriously. Providence, in his view, recognized that human beings lacked complete control over their lives. God is the overseer of all creation, and his will is independent of humanity. He articulated this view in a September 1862 fragment later titled the “Meditation on the Divine Will.” “The will of God prevails,” Lincoln wrote, “In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God can not be for, and against the same thing at the same time.” At once mystical and yet incessantly logical, Lincoln argued that God’s will may be championed by both sides in a conflict but, in reality, God couldn’t support them both. Going even further, Lincoln wrote, “In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party—and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose.” In Lincoln’s view, God wasn’t an infernal tinkerer with humanity, forcing his subjects to do as he pleased. Rather, the will of God manifested through human beings trying their best to act in accordance with God’s will, despite not knowing what God’s will was.
These themes would come to the forefront of his second inaugural address, in one of its most moving passages. “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.” Like with the “Meditation on the Divine Will,” Lincoln saw it as hubris for humanity to assume what God wanted, especially if said assumption defended human bondage. Lincoln was critical of those who believed that slavery was divinely sanctioned, almost to the point of mockery, but implores his listeners to “judge not that we be not judged.” He closes this passage with the “Almighty has His own purposes.” What a remarkable thing for an American president to say. Today, presidents usually end their speeches with “God Bless America,” which usually comes with the assumption that God wants to bless America. But maybe God doesn’t. Lincoln’s admonition against certainty, to reject the easy narrative of God’s support for the Union, took courage and a steadfast commitment to humility.
Lincoln saw the Civil War as a trial that the American people needed to go through to atone for the original sin of slavery—north as well as south. For while the south’s slavocracy harvested the cotton, the north’s textile mills weaved it. All people of the United States had to answer for this horrific crime against humanity; no one was spared. As Lincoln elaborated, “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’.” Divine providence, in Lincoln’s judgment, dictated how long the conflict raged and the amount of damage done. “The judgments of which Lincoln was speaking, then, were manifestations of providence—of God’s rule over the world,” Jon Meacham wrote, “The president was summoning the nation to see itself as a player in a divinely charged—and ultimately merciful and just—creation.” Much as the suffering of Christ led to the salvation of humanity, so too would the Civil War’s carnage presage a “new birth of freedom” in America, as Lincoln articulated two years before in his address at Gettysburg.
What does this all mean for us in a secular context? My reading of the second inaugural, as a secular humanist, places Lincoln’s humility at the center of it. He could’ve given a blustering, arrogant oration that spoke of the bravery of the Union while decrying the savagery of the rebels. He could’ve bragged about the impending victory of the north and relished the opportunity to reconstruct the country on brutal terms to the south. But he did none of this. In the final passage of his address, Lincoln said, “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.” It’s right there in the first words—“With malice toward none, with charity for all.” He’s not selectively deciding who should receive charity or malice. A lesser man, a more vainglorious man, would’ve said “with malice toward the rebels, with charity for the union.” Yet, as we’ve seen previously, Lincoln attributed the sins of the war to the north as well as the south, so it would be wrong to limit kindness to only the north. Only a person with a great sense of modesty could have written a pledge of peace that was so expansive.
The sentiments of Abraham Lincoln and his second inaugural address are about as far from the American body politic today as they’ve likely ever been. Our culture largely rejects humility, a willingness to say that we might be wrong. The cockiness of our political leaders, especially the current resident of the Oval Office, speaks to a broader breakdown in democratic norms and a lack of civility. Lincoln offers us a reason this might be the case in a letter to New York politician Thurlow Weed from March 15, 1865, mere days from his second inauguration. “Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference between the Almighty and them,” he wrote. Leaning on the concept of providence yet again, Lincoln argued that people didn’t appreciate being told that they might not know what God wants. For us today, this means that people don’t like being told they’re wrong, as it hurts their (likely fragile) egos.
For us to rebuild a robust democratic culture, we need to get over having our egos offended and accept that we don’t have all the answers. In short, we need a politics of humility. If we all committed ourselves to thinking before we spoke, listening more instead of shouting over others, and doing the homework needed to articulate informed opinions, this country would be a lot better off. Abraham Lincoln provides us with such an example to emulate. As he said nearly two centuries ago, at the start of his political career, we must gain the esteem of others by rendering ourselves worthy of their esteem. The way to do that is by correctly apportioning our confidence in relation to our competence. Only then can we genuinely make a more just, peaceful, and generous nation.
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“Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it, except on the side of mercy. Wealth could not purchase, power could not awe, this divine, this loving man. He knew no fear except the fear of doing wrong. Hating slavery, pitying the master — seeking to conquer, not persons, but prejudices — he was the embodiment of the self-denial, the courage, the hope and the nobility of a Nation. He spoke not to inflame, not to upbraid, but to convince. He raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction. He longed to pardon. He loved to see the pearls of joy on the cheeks of a wife whose husband he had rescued from death. Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. He is the gentlest memory of our world.”