Revisits the 16th president s ejg. Just six weeks before his assassination. Mj considered one ofa ir t h the m iconic speeches in American History. We are honored to welcome harold back to New York Historical. He is the director of the roosevelt house of policy and institute at hunter college. He previously served as chairman of the Abraham Lincoln. And the United States lincoln bicentennial commission. He is the author of numerous books. His most recent the monument man the life and art of Daniel Chester french. He was part of the chief historicals 2009 and 2010 exhibition. Please turn off your Electronic Devices and join me in welcoming our guests. Thank you. Good evening. Happy lincolns birthday. Im so proud and grateful to be asked to do another lincolns birthday talk here at the New York Historical society. Last year it was sleeting with ice, so i think lincoln may have been another president who was not too happy about global warming. Just a guess. Tonight i want to talk, give a speech about a speech. Sheer a spoiler alert. Only masterpieces qualify for that kind of analysis. So let me call your attention to the fact that lincolns second inaugural address, if you had any doubts, was a masterpiece. I think most of you already know the speech, at least the most famous part, with chalice for none and charity for all if is a goto quote about forgiveness and reconciliation. I think it has been misused frequently recently. Interpreted and used as a call for sectional organization after a bloody civil war. I think that it is less than that. And also much more. Aligned as brilliantly crafted and timely, coming at the end of a great war, and as merciful, is bound to be well received and well remembered. Its kindly, right . It is generous, and it tends to win principal attention for one small section of a speech that, as i said, was less than the sum of its parts. I think the rest of the address deserves attention, too. Even sevenscore and 15 years later, it is time to give it its full due in an age when president ial eloquence is no longer expected. When pundits seem amazed that president s stay on message. It is worth remembering a time when words were valued. Cultural super stars. And politicians even in the most divisive time in american his, were respected and admired even if people disagreed. Snuff so for the people who created the Lincoln Memorial which i tried to cover in my last book the memorial man. It was right alongside the words of the iconic gettysburg address. First, some background about lincoln, long before he became a statue. Because all great messages are products of both their creators and their environments. The second inaugural is no exception. What remains most exceptional is the man that whoet it in his extraordinary evolution. First of all, not a day of formal training worth anything. Completely self educated. Widely read in the bible and in shakespear. Inspired him to the old and new testaments as not only scripture but inspiration. He was a voracious reader of newspapers. It fuels the partisanship of the age and the fuelled the partisan part of Abraham Lincoln. We remember him as a great writer, leader, and ultimately a martyr, he was proud to call himself a pal decision. That meant winning and retaining support and winning from the opposition in the middle. And all of this was not just in person, but in print. He was a great student of the speeches of the american past. He knew webster, he knew hayne, he knew calhoun and clay. He was a stay tuned of american oratory. But he chsz was basically a courtroom lawyer. And his speeches were filled with self deprication. He said my politics are short and sweet like the old womans dance. If elected i shall be grateful, but if not, it shall be all of the same. He wasnt elected so he didnt use that line again. His first speech as a congressman on the mexicanamerican war, he wanted to criticize the idea of military glory as an aspiration. He said in the blackhawk war, i fought, bled, and came away. I did not break my sword for i had none to break, but i had a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitos. He says i never fainted from loss of blood, but i was often very hungry. After he focused on infrastructure, tariffs, and other things not as sexy as the issue that galvanized him. He was spreading slavery into new western territories. As he put it in his greatest prepresident ial space. This covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, i cannot but hate. I hate it because it enabled the eneies with free institutions to taunt us at ip krits. He also started to demonstrate familiarity with scripture. This was not unusual. Nor was it unusual for his audiences to understand the references that he made. Unlike most speakers of the day, lincoln never said, as the bible says, or as shakespeare says, he just slipped these lines into his texts and assumed, i think correctly, based on the familiarity that literate people had with shakespear. So a house divided against itself cannot stand. Now our own senator said something similar. He said the battle between the slave forces and the antislave forces represent an ir irrepressible conflict. Lincoln emerged in primary season to talk about where candidates position themselves. He became the centrist. And yet he said the same thing. What was the difference . He quoted the book of matthew. William had simply issued a warning. Other flashes of brilliance would follow. Most notably 160 years ago this february month, let us have faith that right makes might. And leaving his hometown of springfield to assume the presidency in 1861, this is the 1854 lincoln worth showing if only for his tie, i think. Here the famous one downtown broadway and 10th street the morning of his cooper union address. Here departing illinois in 1861. Now it is leaner. It is less political. And he seems inspired and spirited by the crisis he is about to face. I now leave not knowing when or ever if i may return. There is another thing that would get ordinary arbiters into trouble. You dont compare yourself to george washington, ever, ever. So how did lincoln save himself . He adds, without the assistant of that divine being, i cannot succeed. Without that assistance i cannot fail trusting to, in him, who can go with me and remain with you. And be everywhere for good. Let us confidently hope that all will be well. To his care, commending you as i hope, in your prayers, that you will commend me, i bid you an affectionate farewell. And then he stands at the capitol and speaks about a different kind oflefi;f scriptu religious. He called it politicalci lae re. This time it is about the ties that bind americans together or should. He talked about the mystic cords of memory stretching from every battlefield and pay tryout grave to every living heart stone. And surely they will be touching by the better. But it was in a brayer by Abraham Lincoln. Barack obama said, repeated those words, on the night that he was elected in 2008 from lincoln park. In 1862 he is speaks to congress. Speeches could be quite majestic. Think of a clerk droning them. We cannot escape history, no personal significance, it will light us down in honor or dison nor to the latest generation. We shall nobly save or lose the last best hope of arrest and in 1863 when he vows the government by and forthe people shall not parish from the earth, so great that it spanned its own plits and legends. On the back of an envelope or a train. He tried to ride out afterwards it was so rocky he gave the text to his secretary and the rest is recorded in a secretarys hand. He wrote the gettysburg very diligently while nursing his small son from a indication of smallpox which he then got. If it had been on november 20th and not november 19th it probably would not have been delivered. Because Abraham Lincoln came down with smallpox on the way home from gettysburg and was attended to by his valet, an africanamerican man named William Johnson who he hired against the wishes of the Irish American doorman of the house. And the reason i think it is serious it because William Johnson died a few weeks later of smallpox and Abraham Lincoln collected his personal salary warrants personally. Also it was not rapturously received. It was also not attacked at the time. It was received, and this is true of all of his speeches. It was received politically in a partisan way. Republicans loved his speeches. Democrats hated his speeches. If you read the newspapers it all breaks on party lines. It is a really big challenge for Abraham Lincoln. He is the first to run for a second term since andrew jackson. It is not easy to run in a country that is not broken in half, but perhaps a Million People had already died. Death struck every household in some way. The war has carried mourning to almost every home and the heavens are hung in black. That is a quote, i dont know if you would have recognized it at any time, it was from henry the vi part i. Changing in appropriate states. The other thing going on is a kind of fatalism even has he fights hard for that second term. He is becoming a fatalist, a religion fatalist, and now another controversy for how to interpret lincoln. He writes a memo to himself, discovered only after his death, in which he concludes the will of god prevails. Each party claims to act in accordance with the will of god. God cannot b for and interest the same thing at the same time. In the presence of a war it is possible that the purps is purpose is difference from that of either side. Im willing to say that god wills that this not be done yet. The summer almost convinces him he will lose the election. The death toll is rising. Ulysses s. Grant is mired. The Democratic Campaign is as ugly as it has ever been lincoln ends up doing work then he did here in 1860. There is efforts to get him to rescind the emancipation proclimation he wants to call a temporary although. In his most desperate moment, he writes this memorandum saying this morning it looks like were going to lose. Lets all pledge to support the next administration and try to save the union between the election and the inauguration. And hen he folds up this memorandum and makes his cabinet members sign it site unseen. One of the most peculiar lawyerly moments of his administration the lawyers in the audience can decide if it is valid. But the day of the Democratic Convention that adopts a peace flat form, and a pro peace not at all cost, but most costs military man george mcclellan, but that day George Sherman takes georgia. But there is a Momentum Shift on election day. Even though in the early days mcclellan had been viewed as the peacemaker. And lincoln no better than jefferson davis. But not before lincoln makes another unusual alliance. With a longtime critic, Frederick Douglas. Worth discussing. Not only because President Trump thinks he is doing a good job, but because david blithe has written such a great biography. So lincoln asked douglas to the white house and got him to agree on this amazing plan. And is sending africanamerican recruits into the United States to alert as many enslaved people as possible. That the emancipation was effect basically that they should get out of the area, go to the nearest camp, attach themselves to the union army and liberate themselves. It is an executive order. And then atlanta changes everything and lincoln wins 55 of the vote on election day. He does basically as well as he did in 1860 in most places. And this is an amazing graph of the ground gathering outside of the capital. As you see from the shine, it is a cloudy and rainy day. Lincoln is again ready to examine new themes. Now at the peak of his skills. The war is really winding down. He might have gone with a triumph validation. A condemnation of white southerners. Would there be an occupation or would there not be . As hoe said, it would be brutal. At 750 words, one of the shortest inaugurals ever, the first to be read aloud to an integrated crowd because many africanamerican soldiers were there in the crowd. It might have been the first with a mixed message. This is an entirely different lincoln that appeared four years earlier. This is a change of just four years. He was almost ghostly in he was almost ghostly in appearance, and thatvr9c had overcome his face yielded to that it will be consummated. The other is so sad and peaceful in its infan gnat resuppose, they thought it was a death mask. Unspeakable sadness and strength to summon himself to the occasion. Just to remind you of the order of events, its opposite of the inaugural schedule today. There was a parade, an address, and a swearing in. That is the way that we do it today. He was on the road, and lincoln had ample justification to claim credit for the transformation. And he intended to propose nothing. Entering the capitol, he is walking inside and this wild eyed man lurches forward and has to be retrained by the capitol police. Later it finds out it was John Wilkes Booth. We have an actor in the audience today, please make sure he stays where he is for the remainder of the talk. Then he goes into the senate chamber. Unfortunately the newly installed Vice President has been drinking for about 20 hours consecutively, allegedly because he had a cold, but he really liked to drink. When he is sworn in, he raises the bible above his head and makes a pronouncement and lincoln puts his head in his hands and he turns to the outgoing Vice President and he says take johnson outside and do not let him speak again. It is not its not the perfect moment. There he is. There he is seated on the Capitol Steps with Andrew Johnson next to him. He is not looking at him. Look at that crew cut and the goatee. Not a usual image. When he is introduced, the clouds that had blanketed washington for much of the day suddenly part sending what a newspaper calls an electric thrill through the plaza and lincoln himself said, of the o men, it made my heart jump. The speech is best remembered for its peaceful conclusion, but he spent more time with a ringing Old Testamentlike warning. Lets go through a bit of it. He says at this second appearing, and this is his handwritten manuscript, there is less of an aindication for the first than the second, but he was true to his reputation. The speech will be the way he described the gettysburg address. Short, short, short. What about the war itself . He says the progress of our arms upon which all else depends is well known. With high hope to the future, that is a pret aamazing 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 bore responsibility . On one level, lincoln puts the responsibility wrd it belongs. On the occasion of this four years ago as he says all thoughts were directed to a civil war. When the inaugural address was being delivered from this place four years ago, dedicated to saving the union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it, seeking to resolve by negotiation. Both parties depricated war. And the other would accept war rather than let it parish. And the war came. Think of that phrasing. Suddenly the tone is passive and not condemn tire. It is yielding and that is what he is getting to and he is ready to assess what he considers the real blame and its not just on southern slave holders. Slavery was a peculiar and powerful interest. Te is undisturbed for 74 years. This is what lincoln has to address. Pooert party expected for the magnitude or dur race. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease before the conflict could cease. Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding. He is not going to take credit for that result. He was ready to take this extraordinary leap. Both read the same bible, he says. Each invokes his aide against the other. That is a reference to what he said before. That meditation on divine will. He says it may seem strange that any man dear to ask a mans assistance, but let us judge not that we be not judged. He has his own purposes. And then he has a quote hoa unto the world. And he continues. If we shall suppose that american slavery is one of those offenses which in the proidence of god, but coming to both north and south this terrible war, shall we discern there in from any of those divine attributes . We pray that this scourge of war may speedily pass away. That is a prayer. Whoa to those by whom the offense came. The offense of tolerating slavery in the north was almost as bad as it was by being imposed in the south. That comes to the new testament. Yet of god wills that it continue, meaning the car, until all of the wealth piled by the bondsmans atoil, he now wills to remove, he gives the bond mans 250 years of toil and until every drop of blood drawn with a lash shall be paid with another with a sword as was said 3,000 years ago. Still the judgments are true and righteous. 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, just right after that, he doesnt say now if youre upset, let me say this, he just says with malice toward none, can charity toward all, and firmness in the right let us strive to finish the work that were in. To bind up the nations wounds, to care for him. Who shall have born the battle and for his widow and his orphan, and to do all that may achieve and cherish a just and lasting piece. At the last minute, this is a great great moment, and and he changes because it balances better. Democrats didnt like it. Some republicans thought it was too fire and brimstone. And Frederick Douglas thought that that sentence, every drop of blood, was the greatest said he ever heard in an american speech. Later that day, they decide to go and they want to salute him and he goes to the door of the white house and soldiers cross their rifles and bar him from the door. Douglas being an intrepid man has had worse problems in his life. He goes around to a window and goes in the window. And the soldiers stop him again. He says for the first time in my life i suppose, the first time in any colored mans life, i attendedx c. ]t he goes in. I could not have been more feet from him when he saw me. He said in a loud voice that could be heard, here comes my friend, douglas. Think of the meaning of that phrase. In a exclusively white house. Some of the servants were black, but they werent even really allowed to be servants. After that kind of inaugural address. There was a long receivingbecko line. Douglas approaches and lincoln says i saw you in the crowd listening to my inaugural 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, but still it is a great moment and douglas replies, mr. Lincoln, it was a sacred effort, and his final words was im glad you liked it. It was, as douglas remembered it, the last time i saw him to speak to him. The grease became iconic. Lincoln posed two days later for a photograph. But the words, lincoln was so enamored that he got a letter that said that was a wonderful speech, but he was referring to a different speech. Lincoln is so excited, he says i hope it will ware as well as anything i have ever written, but men dont like to be told that theyre in opposition to gods will. He was soimmersed that for weeks he only thought about his speech. He gave a final speech asking people to consider black suffrage for the last time. This is the moment the is the first time that an american president ever asked for africanamerican suffrage. The same John Wilkes Booth was in the capitol, in the white house in the audience that day. He turned to his friend and he said this means negro equality and he didnt use the word negro. That was the last speech he would make, and three days later for a reiteration, he said for another extension of rights and opportunities he did, indead, assassinate Abraham Lincoln. So his lesson is clear, can his eloquence unmatched. We dare to assume ourselves superior to other people. And they are at risk for divine will, freedom, and justice. What lessons can we draw . As lincoln once said to his small son, who was having trouble comprehending, he said my boy, its all in the speech. And i think we can say the same of the great second inaugural. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, how did those present actually hear speakers without amplification at various venues . Please discuss his voice. The answer is that even though lincolns voice was high pitched, i think it is similar to a opera tenor. You had to have a voice that carried crowds or you had a different career path. We have to know that his voice carried, but, and we also know that he would speak from the chest and very slowly. Why did the gettysburg address take three minutes when we can read it in 90 seconds. You have to take deep breaths and speak slowly to be heard. There are lots of reports that not everyone in the big crowds not everyone would be lucky enough to hear. Some were denied the opportunity to hear every word, but they did it and there are some recordings of an unmicd president harding. Theyre not synced perfect with his voice, and he had a booming voice. They had to be blessed. Was his second inaugural printed in other southern publications and how was it received . Great question. Most of his addresses were not published in Southern Newspapers when they could be. I only found one or two instances in which the 1860 cooper union was published. It was now a few words for the south if they would listen. By march, the southern newspaper industry was decimated. They had no paper because it could come from overseas and the blockade prevented it. Also they robbed every newspaper publisher and picture publisher of its staff, everyone from 1665 was drafted. And others in major cities that they occupied were shut down and they ceased being hostile newspapers. So their opinions are not worth noting. New York Historical society has a wonderful newspaper published in vicksburg on july 1st. I used it in the book. There was so little paper left, but so little thurs for home decorating. They used wallpaper for the last edition, and the Historical Society owns the last of the paper. Why it he will draw so heavily on the references . I believe, and i had lots of arguments about this with historians and rabbis. Was he religious all of his life. Was he more so . My view is he became just unable to bear the responsibilities and guilt of this without invoking a higher power. That may have ordained the death and the destruction. That is just one take on it opinion as to church going, he did not join a church ever in his life. He was something of a nonbeliever in his early days and he was attacked for it in his first run for congress. There is a agreement moment in his first congressional campaign. And he says at one of his rallies, and lincoln is in the audience, opponented went to rallies then and he said all of those in the audience that feel theyre going to hell stand up, and seven or eight stood up and he said all of those that think theyre going to heavy stand up, and they stood up, except for Abraham Lincoln. And reverent said i see that youre going neither to heaven nor hell, and he said if it is all the same to you im going to congress. Which he later said was like hell. When he went in the dark days of the war, at the end of the war, he went to a church. And he went to a church in brook lynn. Beacher was the most famous minister in america. In the early days, he would go to a church near the white house, it is marked at lincolns pew, and he would sit with the door open because he did not want to disturb the group. E wanted to be conspicuous. And he heard some lines that he reinvoked. Its not an easy answer. Why did he select johnson as his running mate . I dont think he asked him about his reconstruction vision. It is arguably lincolns greatist mistake. In 1860 he did not choose his running mate. Nor did candidates go to the convention. But in 1860 he was a western candidate and the convention chose an earner. Now he is running at the quintessential southerner. There are not that many, butc e there is one southern senator thar did not quit the senate when the Southern States succeeded. I think on Inauguration Day mistake but president s i did think about their mortality in those days. They dont ever. And Franklin Roosevelt chose harry truman by happenstance. It is viewed as a great stroke of fortune that he picked truman. So if sherman does not take atlanta does lincoln lose . I think he would have lost. Even i think mcclellan would have sued for peace. Can you kmengs on lincolns love of the opera . Was it plmpled at the second opera. I know that when he was in new york for when he came through in 1861 on his way to the first inaugural, he went to the opera and he caused great comment because he brother black gloves instead of white. Everyone thought he was a bumpkin. They topped the performance when he came in. He was always late. They stops and they brought down the fire curtain and played hail to the chief. He was an interpreter of opera. His presidency took place before term limits. Would he have wanted a third term . No. That is a good question. He thinks he did, he thought he did, it is possible that he thought he was the only person to carry out the vision. But he was physically wrecked at this point. His hands were trembling. He was constantly cold. He didnt sleep, he barely ate, and he began talking to his wife, even on the day he died she testified to this in writing. Started to talk about plans for his post presidency. The two places that he wanted to see when he left the white house were been in a wae voc evacative. What are the two places he wanted to see . California, as far away from washington as you can be, and yet symbolic of the connects of manifest destiny, of the embrace of an entire continent by the United States, and as he said, the holy land. So with that, thank you. Harold, harold thank you so much. That was wonderful. Lets give him another hand. And harold, i want to thank you for all of the wonderful programs you have done with us. There are more to come. How many people here have been to so many of his programs, raise your hand . Lets see. Come to more. And thank you and now you have a chance to join him in our store where he will be signing books. He will be back may 21st where he will be joined by douglas brinkly. Thank you. Weeknights this month, were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of what is available every weekend on cspan 3. Tonight former white house social secretaries lee berman and Jeremy Bernard talk about treating people well. Civility at work and in life. They share stories from the white house and their thoughts on professional and public civility. Watch tonight beginning at 8 00 p. M. Eastern and enjoy American History tv every weekend at cspan 3. Every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, on American History tv, go inside of a Different College classroom and hear about topics from the american revolution, civil rights, and u. S. President s to 9 11. They are engaging with their students. He did most of the work, but reagan met him halfway, reagan encouraged him, and reagan supported him. Madison called it the freedom of the use of the press. It is not a freedom for what we now refer to institutionally as the press. Every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Earn. Find it where you listen to podcasts. Ronald reagan was corn in in 1981. President reagan gave his inaugural address. It was the first inauguration on the west front of the u. S. Capitol. If you place your left hand on the bible and raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, ronald reagan, do solemnly swear. I do solemnly swear. That i will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States. That i will fatefully execute the prede