Author of numerous books including lincoln and the power of the press. Served as chief historian for New York Historicals 20092010 exhibition, lincoln annual lincoln in new york. Begin, i ask that you please turn off your cell phones and other Electronic Devices and please join me in welcoming our guest. Thank you. [applause] mr. Holzer good evening. Happy lincolns birthday. So proud and grateful to be asked to do another birthday talk here at the New York Historical society. Two years ago, it was snowing. T year it was sleeping sleeting with ice. President was another who would not be unhappy about global warming. Just a guess. [laughter] i want to give a speech about a speech. , only masterpieces qualified for that kind of analysis so let me call your attention to the fact that his second inaugural address is indeed a masterpiece. I think most of you already know the speech, at least the most familiar part of it with malice toward none and charity for all. That phrase long ago became part of the national vocabulary. So the go to quote in america about forgiveness and reconciliation. But i think it has also been is used frequently. Interpreted and deployed as a call for sectional reconciliation between southern and northern brothers after the bloody civil war. I think it is less than that, and also much more. Brilliantly crafted and coming at the end of a great boundnd as merciful, is to be well received and well remembered. It is kind and generous. Principalnds to win attention for one section of the speech that was less than the sum of its parts. I think the rest of the address deserves attention, even seven score and 15 years later, i think it is time to give it its due, especially at an age when president ial eloquence is no longer expected. [laughter] it is worth recalling a time when words were valued and ors wereere orit were and politicians generally respected and admired, even if people disagreed. And enough soap to inspire the people who created the Lincoln Memorial, which i tried to cover ,n my last book, monument men and inspired the crafters of the Lincoln Memorial to include the words of the second address along those of the gettysburg address to flank the statue of lincoln. Of lincolnground before he became a statue. Products messages are of the creators and environments. The second inaugural is no exception. What remains exceptional is the man who wrote it and his extraordinary evolution. Day of formal training. Completely self educated. Widely read in the bible and shakespeare and poetry, and of course political writings. He is reading inspired him to cadencesadant since of the king james bible, inspired by old and new testaments. He was a voracious reader of newspapers and fueled the age. Sanship we remember him as a great writer, leader, and ultimately martyr, he was proud to call himself a politician and that meant winning and retaining support and winning from the middle or opposition and all of the argument was not personal, he was also in print. He was a great student of the speeches of the american past. Calhoun, clay. , americanstudent of oratory. At the beginning of his career, he was basically a courtroom lawyer and kind of a ordeprecating order itor. His first speech was selfdeprecating. My politics are short and sweet like the old woman stance. If elected i shall be grateful. If not, i will feel the same. So he did elected, not use that line again. [laughter] first speech as a congressman on the mexicanamerican war, he wanted to criticize the idea of military glory as an aspiration. He said, did you know i am a military hero . In the days of the black hawk war, i thought, lead, and came away. It is quite certain i did not break my sword, for i had none to break. Although i never fainted from loss of blood, i can truly say i was often very hungry. But he morphed into a different type of speaker. He needed a great issue and the great issue in the middle of his life, after he and focused on infrastructure, tariffs, and was american slavery. The effort to end the missouri as he put it in 1854 in his speech, this declared indifference but covert real zeal is the spread of slavery, i cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it enables the tomy of free institutions taunt us as hypocrites. Demonstrating familiarity with scripture. And it wast unusual not unusual for audiences to understand the references he made. Saysver said, as the bible said. As shakespeare he just slipped the lines into correctlynd assumed, based on familiarity people had with shakespeare and the bible, that they would understand. So of course most famously at the beginning of his campaign against Stephen Douglas in 1858, a house divided against itself cannot stand. William seward in new york had said something similar. He said the battle between the slave forces and antislave forces represented irrepressible conflict. For that he was branded as an unelectable radical predicting the dissolution of the union. Emerged as the centrist. And yet he had said the same thing. The difference was he quoted the book of matthew. William seward had simply issued a warning. Follow. Illiance would at cooper union, let us have rightt wright makes makes might. Might makes right. This one, the morning of his cooper Union Address, but this one in illinois in 1861, soundly his style takes a dramatic turn. It is leaner, less political. He seems inspired and spirited by the crisis he is about to face. I leave not knowing when i will return with the task before me greater than that which rested upon washington. That is something that would usually get other speakers into trouble. You do not compare yourself to George Washington, ever. So how did lincoln save himself . Adds, without the assistance of that divine being, i cannot succeed. Cannotat assistance, i fail. Trust into him who can go with me and remain with you and be everywhere for good. Let us come to the hope that all will yet be well. To his care, commending you if i open your prayers, you will commend me. I bid you an affectionate farewell. Capitalstands at the and speaks about a different kind of scripture and religion. What he once called political religion 30 years before. This time it is about the ties that bind americans together, or should. He talks about the chords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart stone across the land, which he said would swell across the union. The irony is that paragraph had ,een drafted by William Seward but elegantly edited into almost a prayer by lincoln. If you recognize the words, it is probably because barack obama said them, repeated them, the night he was elected. From linkin park. Park. Coln 1862 he talks to congress, in those days state of the Union Address is when on a person. Anyway. The clerks read them. We cannot escape history nor personal significance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will lead us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. Lose theobly save or last best hope on earth. And then the zenith was vowssburg, 1863 when he that government shall not perish from the earth. Owneech so great it has its legends, including that it was written on the back of an , thatpe and a train Farewell Speech to springfield he tried to write afterwards, the train was so rocky he gave the text to a secretory and the rest is recorded in the secretarys hand. He wrote the gettysburg address carefully and diligently while nursing his son from mild case of smallpox, which he then got. If the gettysburg ceremony had been november 20 instead of 19th, it probably would not have been delivered because lincoln came down with smallpox on the way home from gettysburg and was attended by his valet, an africanamerican man named William Johnson who he hired against the wishes of the irishamerican doorman of that white house. He had quite a time getting him on the payroll. I think it was a serious illness because William Johnson died a few weeks later from smallpox. Abraham lincoln collected the final salary. That is a digression. Gettysburg was not rapturously received nor attacked. Received like all his speeches politically, in a predicate partisan way. Republicans loved it, democrats hated it. If you read the newspaper witticism, it all breaks along party lines. The 1864 Election Campaign is a really big challenge for lincoln. He is the first president to run for a second term since andrew jackson. Second, it is not easy to run for president in a country that where halfn half and a Million People had already died. Struck every household in some way. Philadelphiaid in in the early days of the campaign, the war has carried mourning to almost every home until it could be said the heavens are hung in black. Quote, you would have to be good at shakespeare. That is from henry the fifth part one. Is yield day to night the night. Ne is yield day to on withr thing going even as hea fatalism fights hard for a second term. He is becoming a religious here another controversy about how to interpret lincoln. He writes a memo to himself discovered after his death in which he concludes the will of god prevails. In great contest, each party claims to act in accordance to the will of god. Must andand both one must be wrong. In the presence of work, it is possible gods purpose is Something Different than the purpose of either side. I am most ready to say god wills the contest and wills that it should not end yet. Keep that in mind as we get to the inaugural. Spring and summer of 1864 almost convinces lincoln he will lose the election. Republicans are defecting his new Union Coalition is not working, the death toll is rising. Mired in ant is terrible campaign in virginia with enormous lossoflife. The campaign against him even in new york is totally racist in character. Elect Abraham Lincoln and we will have a racially integrated society. Lincoln did worse in 1864 then he did in 1860. There were efforts to get him to resend the emancipation proclamation in exchange for a truce that will at least call a temporary halt to the war before the election. Moments,st desperate august 1864, he actually writes morning, saying, this it looks like we are going to lose. Lets all pledge to support the next administration and trying to save the union between the election and inauguration. Memo andolds up the makes his cabinet members sign it, sight unseen. Momentshe most peculiar of his administration. In the audience could decide later if it was valid, but they signed it. Is it the will of god or general sherman . Nominates ann that antiwar Vice President ial candidate and propeace at most costs military man as the democratic nominee, that day William Sherman takes atlanta. Although there was no polling at the time, there was a sense of Momentum Shift and on election day, even though in the early days mclaren had been viewed as a peacemaker and lincoln as a divisive force, things turned. But not before lincoln makes another Unusual Alliance with a longtime critic, Frederick Taylor Frederick Douglass. With discussing not only because trump thinks hes doing a great job, he knows that was in the press last year, but because david light has written such a great biography of Frederick Douglass. So Frederick Douglass is in the news and lincoln asked him to the white house and got him to agree on this amazing plan to send africanamerican recruits into the Confederate States when possible and alert as many people as possible that the emancipation was in effect and they should basically get out of the area and go to the nearest union camp, attach themselves to the union army, and liberate themselves. Because the emancipation emancipation proclamation is an executive order. But that atlanta changes and wins 55 of the vote on election day. The southbig, but does not vote so he does basically is good as well as he did in 1860. This is an amazing photograph of the crowd gathering outside the capital on Inauguration Day. You can see from the shine in the street, it was a cloudy, rainy day. Lincoln is ready to examine great things. Skills. He peak of his a lesser man would have chosen a victory speech. The war is really winding down at this point. It would be over in 4. 5 weeks. He might have gone with a triumphant vindication that the death and devastation, a prediction of the wrap up of the war or condemnation of white southerners for fighting to preserve the slave system. Offered at have specific message about how conflict could be concluded. Would there be an occupation . Would it be brutal or merciful . As lincoln said, it would be both. His speech would be ambivalent but unforgettable. At 750 words, one of the shortest and allgirls ever, manyst inaugurals ever africanamerican soldiers were in uniform and the crowd. The first to be extensively photographed and the first with a mixed message. Keep in mind this is an entirely different lincoln that had appeared four years earlier. This is the change of four years. On the left is lincoln 11 days before his first inauguration. On the right, 30 days before the second. Emaciated, almost ghostly in appearance. And yet the mask that had overcome his face in 1861 had smile, as a slight though he knows the great work will be consummated. But he suffered much in the process. Made five years apart. The first is a man young for his years. A face full of life and energy. Andother, sad and peaceful a famous sculptor thought it was a death mask. Enough to summon himself to the occasion. To remind you of the order of events, it is opposite the inaugural schedule today. First there was the parade. Then the address. Then the swearingin. The opposite of today. Of the day, the 13th amendment had passed and been the 27 states of required for ratification. I will not come until after his death it was on the road. That would not come until after his death but it was on the road. He plans no display of bravado he intended to propose no vision for the future beyond freedom and reunion. It was not an entirely triumphant day. Entering the rotunda of the capital, he is walking inside and this wild eyed man lurches forward and had to be restrained by capitol police. Later it was revealed it was John Wilkes Booth. He was there. We have an actor in the audience today. Please make sure he stays where he is for the remainder of the talk. [laughter] then he goes into the Senate Chamber for the separate inauguration of the Vice President , done in the Senate Chamber. The Vice President had been drinking consecutively for 20 hours, allegedly because he had a cold. He really liked to drink. When he is sworn in, he raises the bible above his head and makes some pronouncements and lincoln puts his head in his hand and turns to the outgoing Vice President and says, take johnson outside and do not let him speak again. There he is. There is the rare photograph. Lincoln on the capital steps when Andrew Johnson, next to him, not looking at him. Look at that crewcut and goatee. Not a usual lincoln image. Isn when lincoln stands up, introduced, the clouds that had been in washington for most of sendingsuddenly parted, the newspaper called an electric thrill through the plaza and lincoln said it made his heart jump. Rememberedch is best as we look at him holding his manuscript for the peaceful conclusion. With an much more time Old Testament type warning. At thets by saying second appearing to take the oath the president ial office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Beware of speakers who say they will be brief. But he was true to his reputation. He was going to be brief. Short. Ech would be what about the war . All he says is the progress of our arms upon which all else depends is well known to the public and myself, encouraging to all with high hopes of the future, no prediction in regard to it. That is Pretty Amazing brushing off of what people may have been expecting to hear. Satisfactory and encouraging was as much as he would allow himself to assert. Who have responsibility . Level, on one responsibility was put on the secessionists. He said all thoughts were directed to a civil war. Then he gets specific. When the address was delivered four years ago, dedicated to saving the union without more, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy us, seeking to dissolve the union by negotiation. Both parties deprecated one of them would make war rather than let the Union Survive and the other would accept war, rather than let it perish. And the war came. Think of that phrase, and the war came. What an amazing, almost casual declaration. Become, the tone has and the tense has become passive, not condemnatory. A statement of political fact yielding to a kind of regretful acknowledgment of what had occurred. That is what he is getting to. Assess the real blame. It is not going to be just on southern slaveholders. Slavery, he reminds listeners, was a peculiar and powerful interest. All know that this is the cause of the war. That is my reminder to anyone who says the cause of the war was anything else. Lincoln and his contemporaries knew that it was slavery. Yet it had existed undisturbed for 75 years. Morph intoatient conflagration. This is what we can has to address. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it had already attained. Neither anticipated the cause of the conflict might cease even before the conflict should cease. He is making reference to the emancipation amendment. These each looks for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding. He is not going to take credit for that astounding. That astounding results. God, not lincoln, had willed this and he is ready to take this extraordinary leap. Both read the same bible, he says. And pray to the same god. And each invokes his aid against the other. That meditation on divine will. It may seem strange that any man should dare to ask a just god for assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other mens faces. But let us judge not that we be not judged. The almighty has his own purposes. Then, heres comes an Old Testament quote. 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. He continues, if we shall suppose american slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of god, must any come, but which having come to both north and south this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the events came the offense came, shall we assume a departure from the divine attributes which believers in a living god ascribe to him . Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. That is a prayer. Whom the offense came. Slavery had offended god. The offense of tolerating slavery in the north was almost as bad as it was bite being imposed in the south. Woe to the world because of offenses that comes from the new testament. Then comes the powerhouse moment. The moment fred dressed Frederick Douglass would admire most. Yet if god wills and continue, meaning the war, until all the wealth piled by the bondsmans remove, hew wills to gives the bondman 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk until every drop of blood drawn with a lash shall be paid by another drawn with a sword, as was said 3000 years ago still it must be said. The judgments of the lord are true and righteous. Says. Y mill lewis a fire and brimstone declaration from the Old Testament unlike anything ever pronounced at the u. S. Capitol in a secular speech. And without warning, right after that. Says, after that fire and brimstone damnation, he says, with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right god gives us let us drive to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nations wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan. And to all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves with all nations. This such a great editor, they printed text, he pasted up so he could read it on one page. He changes, and with the world. He changes with all nations, because it balances better. Do people cheer . We are not sure. Democratsion split, did not like it. Some republicans thought it was to fire and brimstone. They did not hear that with malice toward none. Frederick douglass believed the sense that proceeded with malice toward none, every drop of blood drawn with a lash shall be repaired paid by one drawn with a sword was the greatest line he had ever heard in an american speech. Day, lincoln hold a reception of the white house. Frederick douglass decides to go , to salute him. And goes to the door the white house. Soldiers crossed their rifles and bar him from the door. Man,as being an intrepid he goes around to a window and goes in the window. [laughter] the soldiers stopped him again. He says, for the first time in , i attended a reception of president lincoln. Says, this will not do, gentleman. He says to the policeman. Just say to mr. Lincoln that fred douglas is at the door. They do. There is a law. The guards come in and apart the way and he goes in. And douglass says in less than half a minute i was invited into the east room. I could not have been more than 10 feet from him when mr. Lincoln saw me. His countenance lighted up and he said in a loud voice that could be heard to the east room, here comes my friend douglass. Think of the meaning of that phrase in a white house that had been an exclusively white house except for a few servants, not even all the servants. There were not even allowed to be servants. Of the meaning of that. Here comes my friend douglass, after that kind of an inaugural address. Theres a long receiving line and lincoln beckons douglass to break the line, which he did when douglass visited the white house privately a year earlier. Douglas, i says heard you in the crowd i saw you in the crowd listening to my address, there is no mans opinion i value more than yours. What did you think of it . That is classic, enough about you, what about me . Still, it is great moment. [laughter] replies, mr. Lincoln, it was a sacred effort. Lincolns final words to this man with whom he had collaborated on a plan, im glad you liked it. Remembereddouglass it, the last time i saw him to speak to him. The address became iconic. Lincoln posed two days later for a photograph. Balcony. Ite house lincoln was so enamored of the speech that he gets a letter from a new york editor that says it is a wonderful speech but he was referring to a different speech. Lincoln is so excited to get the message that he says, i hope it will wear as well as anything i have written but men do not like to be told they are in opposition to gods will. He was so immersed in this, that for weeks he only thought about the impact of his speech. Get hislater, it can final speech. He did not know it would be his final speech. From the window of the white house. Asking the country to consider black suffrage. First for the educated and those who fought in the army. But itlike means testing is a moment, the first time an american president ever asked for africanamerican suffrage. The same John Wilkes Booth who menaced lincoln in the u. S. Capitol on Inauguration Day was in the capital and the audience of the white house that day. He turned to his friend and said, this means the great quality. He did not use the word nigro as you can imagine. That is the last speech he will ever make. , for aee days later reiteration of what he said in his inaugural address, for another extension of rights and opportunities, John Wilkes Booth did indeed assassinate Abraham Lincoln. So lincolns lesson is clear, his eloquence unmatched. We dare assume ourselves at ourr to other people risk to divine will for freedom and justice. Have we absorbed the lesson . History has yet to unfold and we shall fully see. What lessons can we draw . As lakin said to his son having trouble as lincoln said to his son, my boy, it is all in the speech. I think we can say this same of the great second inaugural. Thank you. [applause] thank you. [applause] i think we have time for me to answer these questions you put on cards. Hereid those present speakers without amplification . The answer is, although its voice has been described as highpitched, my guesstimate is that it was highpitched the way an operatic tenders is highpitched. Twang,have had a western but you had to have a voice that carried crowds or you chose a profession other than politics or the ministry. Those were performance requirements. We have to know his voice carried. From the chest and slowly. Why did the gettysburg address take three minutes when we can read it in 90 seconds . Why do the cooper Union Address 27, three hours on fabric 1860, when a modern reading takes an hour . You have to take deep breaths and speak slowly to be heard. Ar . Those present he there are reports that not everyone in these crowds, and it was 15,000 in the inaugural. Unlucky enough to be in the fringes of the crowd would be denied the opportunity to hear every word. But it is remarkable. They did it. Recordings of a on nmikedarren harding u president Warren Harding speaking. With hisot synched voice. And he had a booming voice. Inauguralns second printed in any southern publications and if so how was it received . Great question. Most of his addresses were not published in Southern Newspapers when they could be. Twoavily found one or instances in which the 1860 Cooper Union Speech was published. It wasough a third of now a few words for the south if they would listen. They did not. Moothis question is because by march of 18 625, the southern newspaper industry was completely decimated. Why . They had no paper. It would come from overseas and the blockade prevented it. Second, the military conscription robbed every newspaper publisher and picture publisher of its staff. Drafted from 16625 was was drafted in major cities the union occupied, baltimore, new orleans, atlanta, they were shut down and ceased being hostile newspapers, so their opinions are not worth noting. The New York Historical society has a wonderful newspaper published in vicksburg in 18 623. I used it in the book 1863, called the civil war in 50 objects. They used wallpaper for the last edition and the Historical Society owns the last vicksburg paper. Was lincoln an active churchgoer . Draw heavilyem to and effectively on biblical and religious references . Believe, and i have had arguments on this with historians and rabbis. Was a genuinely religious all his life . Did he become a more religious in the wake of this horrific unheard of conflagration . , he became unable to bear the responsibility and guilt of this without invoking a higher power. Deathay have ordained the and destruction. That is just one take on it. , heo churchgoing assiduously did not join a church ever in his life. He was something of a nonbeliever in his early days and was attacked for it in his first run for congress. Moment when he is running against a minister who says at a rally, with lincoln and the audience, he said all those in the audience who feel they are going to hell, stand up. And seven or eight people stood up. He said all those in this audience who think theyre going to heaven stand up. And everyone else stood up except for the conspicuous Abraham Lincoln who remained seated in the front row. And the reference said, mr. Lincoln, i see youre going neither to heaven or hell. Where you intend to go . Lakin shouted, referent, im going to congress. Said, i am going to congress. [laughter] he later said it was like hell, 2. 5 miles from the white house. At the end of the war he did go to a church he did not sit in the pews. And he went to henry ward beechers church in brooklyn when he came to cooper union to hear beecher, the most famous minister in america. Of 1865 hey days would go to a church near the. Hite house the pew is marked as lincolns pew. He would sit in the Ministers Office with the door open because he did not want to disturb the group. He heard some lines he reinvoked for the second inaugural. Like all things of lincoln it is not an easy answer. Why did lincoln select johnson as his running mate given his diverting ues diverging values . I think it was his greatest mistake. In 18 624 was not done openly. But in 1860 lincoln was a western candidate so the convention chose and eastern are an easterner. Now he is running as a northerner. The Republican Party has been replaced by National Union party to attract prowar democrats. The person to choose as a prowar democrat. Theyre not that many. There is one southern senator who did not quit the senate when the Southern States seceded. That is Andrew Johnson of tennessee. On Inauguration Day, lincoln realized he had made a mistake. But president s do not think about their mortality in those days. They do not ever. Chose harry about Truman Franklin roosevelt chose harry truman by happenstance to get rid of henry wallace. It is viewed as a great stroke of good fortune that he chose truman with only a few months to live. If sherman does not take atlanta, does link and lose . If atlanta is not taken will mcclellan sue for peace . I think you would have lost and mcclellan would have sued for peace. Comment on lincolns love of the opera . York in 1861n new on his way to the first inaugural and he stayed at the astor house, he went to the opera. He caused great, because he wore black gloves instead of white gloves. People thought he was a bumpkin. Premiere ofew york a verity opera. Opera. I he was always late to the theater. They stopped performance. They brought down the fire curtain and plate help to the chief. He was an interrupter of opera anyway. [laughter] lincolns presidency took place before term limits. Himselfenvision delivering a third inaugural and what he wanted a third term . That is a good question. Gorby doll exceeded. He did. Dal thought he did. He was physically wracked at this point, his hands were troubling, his legs were trembling and he was consul he called. He did not sleep. He barely ate. Constantly cold. , he on the day he died began talking about plans for his postpresidency. The places he wanted to see after he left the white house were evocative of the two approaches to the second inaugural address, nationhood and a new kind of blessing over a racially reconciled america, not just sexually but racially. , as far away from washington as you could be, yet symbolic of the connecting, of manifest destiny, the embrace of an entire continent by the united states. And as he said, the holy land. With that, thank you. [applause] you sod holzer, thank much. That was wonderful. [applause] for all ofhank you the wonderful programs you have done with us and there are more to come. How many people here have been to so many of harolds programs, raise your hand . A lot of people. Come to more. And thank you. Now you have a chance to join in our ny history store where Harold Holzer will sign books. He will be back may 21, joined by Douglas Brickley who will interview him on his new book, the president s versus depressed. Thank you. [applause] the president s versus the press. [applause] from George Washington to george w. Bush, every sunday at 8 00 p. M. At midnight eastern, we feature the presidency, our weekly series exploring
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