The Path The World Is On

I have always been a fan of history – especially US History. I am drawn especially to two times in US history, the Civil War and World War 2. The first, I think because it happened on the lands where I have lived my life, The South, and I have an ancestor or two who fought in

the war – on the wrong side, but that’s another story (although I adore, and always have the idea of being a rebel). I think my mother is the catalyst for my fascination with World War 2. She has vivid memories of being a young child when the war began and of the war effort, I believe it came in her formative years, which indeed formed her. In return, her formation in those times in many ways formed me – even though we end up in differing places in our beliefs and conclusions.

On inauguration day 2025, which I refused to watch BTW, I was drawn to and read Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, which was delivered 160 years ago this coming March. I had, on the Saturday before ,visited the 160th celebration of the battle at Fort Fisher, an annual event for me, and was thinking about the time of reconstruction that came after the end of the Civil War. I even allowed my thoughts to venture to how the world, my world growing up the the American South, would be different if Lincoln had survived.

I think this address is probably Lincoln’s greatest speech. Historian Kevin M. Levin says,

“Lincoln somehow manages to project strength, humility and vulnerability all at the same time through his words. It is easy to look back and view this address as one of the closing chapters of the Civil War, but that was anything but clear to Lincoln and the rest of the country. Lincoln could report on the “progress of our arms,” as “reasonably satisfying and encouraging to all,” but he had no idea how long it would it take for all Confederate armies to lay down their arms.

Other pressing questions loomed even larger. What would a lasting peace look like? How exactly would the former Confederate states be brought back into the Union? How would four million formerly enslaved men, women, and children be integrated into the country? Can a nation truly reconcile after so much violence and bloodshed?

Lincoln understood that the path toward reunion demanded a recognition of how the nation had arrived at this moment in time. “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.”

I fear that we are entering a time much like the days before the Civil War. It’s cultural. It’s based in white supremacy. AND perhaps most important it is based on GREED – unadulterated Greed! And not the “Greed is good” catchphrase from the 1987 movie Wall Street!

I don’t know where we are headed – toward Civil War or a redux of World War 2 where we are under a Hilter-esk regime. But I do know that my fascination with these two time periods over the course of  the past 50ish years makes me worried and perhaps even afraid.

I invite you to read the words of Lincoln. Absorb them. Ponder Them.

Then ask yourself, HOW DO WE DO BETTER today in 2025?

 

 

 

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 this great conflict which is of primary concern to the nation as a whole, 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.