Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address: “The Better Angels of Our Nature”

Lincoln's Inauguration

Can logic and morality overcome our fears? Can honest reassurances restore trust? Can people, overwhelmed by the fear of change, even remember “the better angels of our nature?” Or, on March 4, 1861, when Abraham Lincoln gave his First Inaugural Address, had the United States reached juncture that could be resolved only by bloodshed and horror? Lincoln’s magnificent rhetorical effort may have marked the limits of what we can expect rhetoric to do.

Having won the United States presidency, Abraham Lincoln faced a dilemma: save the Union, or end slavery? Feeling unable to do both, Lincoln appealed, on March 4, 1861, in his first inaugural address, to “the better angels of our nature.” Such a noble theme, such a futile theme. Ultimately, the Union collapsed, to be reborn years later as a nominally free nation.

In this speech, Lincoln futilely appealed to reason, then to law, and then to conscience. A futile trifecta of rhetoric: logic, imperatives, and morality, the three principles on which civilization rests. Any school child knows that Lincoln failed in his central purpose. A few weeks later, the South Carolina militia attacked Fort Sumter. By 1865, hardly a household anywhere in either the United States of America or the Confederate States of America had not lost a husband, son, or brother to the heartless conflict.

Lincoln spoke on that day in March in a final, desperate, hopeless attempt to save the Union. The public already knew that Lincoln’s policies were moderately anti-slavery, and that the Republican party’s agenda was to prevent the spread of slavery while leaving it alone in places where it already existed. Even that modest policy was enough to terrify southern conservatives.

So, Lincoln made a choice: his message on March 4 was not to speak forthrightly against slavery, but instead to reassure White southerners. In this speech, he made one last, desperate attempt to save the union of states. His message failed. Maybe emotions were already running too high. Maybe Lincoln’s precise, sincere logic was helpless against the blind fear of change. Maybe, in the depths of their empty hearts, the southern aristocrats already knew that Lincoln was right—but didn’t care. Surely knowing all of this, Lincoln made his last, desperate plea for union and peace.


Lincoln Promised to Preserve Slavery

In 1858, Lincoln had warned about a “house divided” and rued that the nation could not endure “half slave and half free.”

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Earlier Post: Abraham Lincoln’s “House Divided” Speech
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Nevertheless, in this First Inaugural Address, Lincoln began by reassuring White Southerners. He first asserted that he had, throughout his entire political career, promised not to interfere with slavery in the states where it already existed. Indeed, at his speech’s very outset, Lincoln noted that “the people of the Southern States” were worried that “their property [i.e., enslaved workers], and their peace and personal security are to be endangered.” Lincoln’s thesis was that “There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension.” This was a complete surrender on the issue of slavery. Ironically, rejecting Lincoln’s concessions, the South embarked on a course that, four years later, ripped their cruel, cherished institution of chattel slavery from its roots.

In any case, to reinforce his assurance, Lincoln quoted his own statement from the first Lincoln- Douglas debate:

“I do but quote from one of [my] speeches when I declare that ‘I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.’ Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations, and had never recanted them.”

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Earlier Post: Abraham Lincoln, White Supremacist, The First Lincoln-Douglas Debate

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Lincoln then cited the Republican Party platform, which specifically called for states’ rights: “the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively.” That, again, denied any ambition to abolish slavery.

Lincoln also cited the United States Constitution’s requirement that fugitive slaves needed to be returned to their enslavers and endorsed the Fugitive Slave Law. In this speech, Lincoln even specifically endorsed a constitutional amendment to protect slavery. Yet, even this was not enough to reassure White Southerners.


Sectionalism: Is the Union Forever?

Having promised not to end slavery, Lincoln followed by warning the southern states that they had no legal right to leave the Union. “I hold,” he said, “that, in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual.” He offered a series of legalistic arguments that no state had the right to leave the Union. He cited contract law. He decried the lawlessness of seceding from the Union:

“Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy.”

Anarchy is, of course, at least in theory, the very opposite of conservative thought. Or so one might think.

Toward the speech’s end, however, possibly reigniting the worries of the southern states’ White voters, Lincoln did reiterate the ultimate dilemma about chattel slavery:

“One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended.”

Lincoln nevertheless placed the onus of civil war entirely on the southern states, while denying that such a conflict could be in any way his responsibility:

“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect, and defend it.’”

Again, Lincoln’s point was legalistic: he had sworn an oath, which he would honorably follow. He turned again to logic:

“Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them.”

Yet, in a matter of weeks, they separated indeed.  

And Our “Better Angels”

Ever the optimist, however, Lincoln appealed to everyone, northerners and southerners alike, to remember the nation’s heritage and to live by conscience. As so often happens, appealing to conscience is a forlorn faith, the last useless refuge of honest rhetoricians. In one of the most dramatic passages of any American public speech, Lincoln appealed to friendship, “the mystic chords of memory,” “the chorus of the Union,” and, finally, so hopefully, to “the better angels of our nature.” This was one of the greatest passages from one of history’s greatest speakers:

“The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

Yet, how quickly the better angels were crushed! Fort Sumter was followed by a long series of horrible battles, scorched earth tactics, and total war in the Shenandoah Valley and the March through Georgia. In 1865, General Sherman attacked the capital of South Carolina, which quickly burned to the ground. As the Roman historian Tacitus said, “they make a desert, they call it peace.” By 1861, the nation had passed beyond what rhetoric could accomplish.

Conclusion

Today, we must ask ourselves the same questions. Do we feel the swelling chorus of Union? Are we touched by “the better angels of our nature?” Or do we, instead, allow fear and discord to rule over us like the tyrants they are?

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Earlier Post: Frederick Douglass’ 1852 Fourth of July Speech and the Christian Right

 
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Image: Unknown photographer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons