As we move inexorably to the 2024 elections, I have been reading some Inaugural Addresses of Past Presidents. This is good guidance it seems to me to help decide our future leadership because more than ever and particularly in these divided times, character of leaders and the evidence of that character really does count.
We all remember George Washington who could have been President for life, thus setting a dangerous precedent by creating an aristocracy leadership, chose to retire at the end of a second four-year term. IN fact, he was reluctant to accept a second term but finally did so out of a great sense of duty to his country.
His first inaugural speech is characterized by self-deprecation and unapologetic humility for the responsibility he was assuming. More than once he deferred to the will of the people for guidance during his term of office. He also warned about too much partisanship affecting the affairs of the leaders of the nation.
“…I behold the surest pledges that as on one side no local prejudices or attachments, no separate views nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests, so, on another, that the foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the world.”
Likewise, Thomas Jefferson also deferred to the people for guidance. Throughout his speech there was an air of humility, from a man not known for being very humble. Jefferson was a very learned man, and it is reflected in his wordy writings. Even so, if one takes the time to parse the period language and rhetorical flourishes, Jefferson comes across as understanding the gravity and weightiness of the responsibilities he was assuming.
Both Washington and Jefferson invoked the hand of divine providence for the establishment of the Nation and for help in leading the country during their presidencies.
Notably, President Trump invoked divine providence five times in his sixteen minute, about 1500 word, speech. Also, in that speech he said this: “Every four years, we gather on these steps to carry out the orderly and peaceful transfer of power…”
The quintessential Unifying speech was given by Abraham Lincoln in his second Inaugural. The Civil War was quickly coming to an end and there was an air of inevitability in that regard. We all know that Lincoln would be assassinated within a few weeks after he was inaugurated for a second term and the war would effectively be over with Lee’s surrender to General Grant. Unlike the first inaugural speech, he acknowledged much of what needed to be said about the war had already been said, not only by him but others too.
In his first inaugural speech Lincoln outlined what the country, especially the southern states, needed to do to preserve the Union of States. He wanted to reconcile with the seceded states but he felt it was them to choose a union since they had left the other states and were not forced out. The speech therefore was long in its plea to his “dissatisfied fellow countrymen” to avoid, at all possible an armed conflict. Here is how he closed:
“I close. We are not, we must not be, aliens or enemies, but fellow-countrymen and brethren. Although passion has strained our bonds of affection too hardly, they must not, I am sure they will not be broken. The mystic chords which, proceeding from so many battlefields and so many patriot graves, pass through all the hearts and all the hearths in this broad continent of ours, will yet again harmonize in their ancient music when breathed upon by the guardian angel of the nation.”
By the time of the second inaugural, the nation had suffered through four years of the most terrible war in our history. 623,000 soldiers had died, as many as in all the wars the US had been involved in our entire history. About 400,000 Americans died in World War II. In a recent book I read, the author David White wrote, “If one compares the United States in 1860, a small nation with just over 30 million inhabitants, to the United States in 1940, with over 130 million citizens, the comparable losses in World War II would have been more than 2.6 million dead.”
Lincoln wrote his second inaugural address sometime before the day of the swearing in and he put a 600-word document in his desk for further edit and revision. The address he gave was 703 words. He says God 14 times, quotes from the Bible four times and invokes prayer three times.
Clearly, the stress of the war and the suffering of the entire nation weighed on him as we can see from the photographs of him as an elected President and a war-weary President just before he was killed. He had every right to be vindictive and punish the people who brought the war to the United States and who fought against the union. He was the leader who had to try and sleep every night after battles like Antietam and Gettysburg. But, in this speech he did not call the soldiers and leaders from the south “rebels” or “the enemy”.
After any read of a scholarly analysis of this speech, one can only conclude (based upon Lincoln’s own theological beliefs) that forgiveness was the only path to bring the United States back to One Nation Under God. He was not a partisan seeking revenge. He was the leader of the whole nation.
This is how he concluded his speech which I am sure you have read before or perhaps seen it inscribed on the wall of the Lincoln Memorial:
“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 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.”
Have a great 2024. I’ll see you soon.