Lincoln as a social prophet; Words to a Divided Nation in the Sh

The first bit Plantation Florida man year old. Man in a low standard on the following program is the seventh in a series of readings on Abraham Lincoln entitled Lincoln a social prophet. Readings in commemoration of Illinois Sussex and Teddy all are done by Marvin saying our speech instructor at Northern Illinois University. Today's reading or words to a divided nation in the shadow of war. Mr. S. R. What words can any president say to a divided nation in the shadow of war. Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address and several other messages within the year 1861 contained such words some of what he said in those

speeches does not excite us but other ideas mark him perhaps throughout time as a social prophet. Ideas such as the necessity of state government but firm adherents to the union. The cancer of slavery which must be squarely faced and the foolishness almost madness of war since Lincoln's first inaugural was fairly brief we can take a little time to share the background for its presentation and later some reactions to it. Two of the addresses we will reveal may actually prove as incisive for us as the first inaugural itself. Now. What was the mood of the country just prior to the deliverance of Lincoln's first inaugural. The famous link Kony and scholar Paul Engle affirms that no president ever approached his inauguration in the brittle atmosphere which pervaded the country on March 4th 1861. The facts are plain aggressive Southern leaders regarded Lincoln as an abolitionist an enemy of all Southern rights and aspirations. Seven states in the Deep South had voted themselves out of the Union. By February 23rd they all had seceded

and South Carolina as early as December 20th 1860. Moreover in Montgomery Alabama on February 4th six southern states ratified the provisional constitution authorized 100000 army and elected Jefferson Davis President. During this time Congress was desperately but in vain trying to save the Union via the compromise and other measures. So I'm in this seething cauldron of high emotions dread of war and intense area hatreds. The first inaugural ceremony transpired. Lincoln basically delivered a speech of conciliation as he did less than two weeks before at Independence Hall Philadelphia at Philadelphia February 22nd Lincoln was to participate in the impressive flag week raising event. He did not know apparently that he would be asked by Theodore Cuyler to deliver a brief speech. Since this speech serves as a helpful prelude to the first inaugural we will share it now. Mr Katter I am filled with deep emotion at finding myself standing here in this place

where we're collected together the wisdom the patriotism the devotion to principle from which sprang the institutions under which we live. You have kindly suggested to me that in my hands is the task of restoring peace to the present distracted condition of the country. I can see in return sir that all the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn so far as I have been able to draw them from the sentiments which originated and were given to the world from this hall. I have never had any feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here and framed and adopted that Declaration of Independence. I have pondered over the toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army who achieve that independence. I have often inquired of myself what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the motherland but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty not alone to the people of this country but I

hope to the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men. This is a sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence. Now my friends can this country be saved upon that basis if it can I will consider myself one of the happiest men in the world. If I can help to save it if it cannot be saved upon that principle it will be truly awful. But if this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle I was about to see I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it now in my view of the present aspect of affairs. There need be no bloodshed or war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course and I may say in advance that there will be no bloodshed on unless it be forced upon the government and then it will be compelled to act in self-defense. My friends this is wholly an unexpected speech and I did not expect to be called upon to say a word when I came here. I supposed it was merely to do something toward raising the flag.

I may therefore have said something indiscreet. I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by and if it be the pleasure of Almighty God die by. The excitement in Philadelphia February 22nd was no less than that in March. WASHINGTON March 4th an excited gathering of perhaps fifty thousand more than had ever before attended such a ceremony jammed the Capitol grounds and vicinity. What would the president elect say. He had carefully thought through his message. I compared it with strong minds such as Henry Clay Andrew Jackson and Daniel Webster. And then after some revision sought advice from a small circle of men including William Seward Stephen Douglas O-H Browning et cetera. Seward suggested no fewer than 36 revisions the last paragraph of the inaugural coming entirely from Seward and accepted by Lincoln with some of his own artistic adaptations Soward in particular sought to soften Lincoln's approach Lincoln to desired such an attitude coupled with a firm readiness to swiftly

counter any Southern rebellion. The finished product of course was still essentially a Lincoln's Let us try to imagine ourselves back in March 4th 1861. A firm but conciliatory a president speaks these words to a divided nation in the shadow of war. Fellow citizens of the United States in compliance with a custom as old as the government itself I appear before you to address you briefly and to take in your presence the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States to be taken by the president before he enters on the execution of his office. I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement apprehension seems to exist among the people of the southern states that by the accession of a Republican administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed the most ample evidence to the contrary has

all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the public speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those 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. I know reiterate the sentiments and in doing so I only press upon the public attention. The most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible that the property peace and security of no Section II to be in any wise endangered by the now incoming administration I add to that all the protection which consistently with the Constitution and the laws can be given will be cheerfully given to all the states when lawfully demanded for whatever cause as cheerfully as to one section as to another. I take the official oath today with no mental reservations and with no purpose to construe the Constitution

or laws by any hypercritical rules. And while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress is proper to be enforced. I do suggest that it will be much safer for all both an official and private stations to conform to and abide by all those acts would stand on repealed then to violate any of them. Trusting to find impunity and having them held to be unconstitutional. A disruption of the federal union here too for only MEST is now formidably attempted. I hold it in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution. The union of these states is perpetual perpetuity is implied if not expressed in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government property ever had a provision in its organic law for its own term a nation continue to execute all of the express provisions of our national constitution and the union will endure for ever it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.

Again if the United States be not a government proper but an association of states in the nature of contract merely Can it is a contract be peaceably on made by less than all the parties who made it. One party to a contract me violated break it so to speak. But does it not require all to lawfully rescinded. Descending from these general principles we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed in fact by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured in the faith of all then thirteen states expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual. By the Articles of Confederation in 1778 and finally in 1787 one of the declared objects for ordaining in establishing the Constitution was to form a more perfect union.

But if destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the states be lawfully possible the union is less perfect than before the Constitution having lost the vital element of perpetuity. It follows from these views that no state upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union. That resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void and that acts of violence within any state or state against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary according to circumstances. I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws the union is on broken and to the extent of my ability I shall take care as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the states. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part and I shall performance so far as practicable unless my rightful masters the American people shall withhold the requisite means or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary.

I trust this will not be regarded as a menace but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself. In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority the power confided to me will be used to hold occupy and possess the property and places belonging to the government and to collect the duties in impose. But beyond what may be necessary for these objects there will be no invasion no using of force against or among the people anywhere. For hostility to the United States in any interior locality shall be so great and so universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the federal offices. There will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the government to enforce the exercise of these offices the attempt to do so would be so ear training and so nearly impracticable with all that I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such

offices. The males on my ass repelled will continue to be furnished in all parts of the Union. So far as possible the people everywhere shall have that sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm font and reflection. The course you're indicated will be followed unless current events and experience shall show a modification or change to be proper and in every case and exemption see. My best discretion would be exercised according to circumstances. Actually existing and with a view and a hope of a peaceful solution of the National troubles and the restoration of fraternal sympathies and affections that there are persons in one section or another who seek to destroy the union at all events and are glad of any pretext to do it I will neither affirm or deny. But if there be such I need addressed no word to them. To those however who really love the Union. May I not speak. Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our national fabric with all its benefits its memories and its hopes. Would it not be wise to ascertain

precisely why we do it. Will you hazard so desperate a step whether there is any possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence. Will you one of the certain eels you fly to are greater than all the real ones you fly from. Will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake. All profess to be contained in the union of all constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it true then that any right plainly written in the Constitution has been denied. I think not. Happily the human mind is so constituted that no party can reach the audacity of doing this. Think if you can every single instance in which a plainly written provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right it might in a moral point of view justify revolution certainly would. If such a right were a vital one but such is not our case. All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are still plainly assured to them by affirmations and

negations guarantees and prohibitions in the Constitution. They controversies never arise concerning them. But inorganic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No force I can anticipate nor any document of reasonable length contain express provisions for all possible questions fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by state authority. The Constitution is not expressly say me. Congress prohibits slavery in the territories. The Constitution is not expressly say must Congress protect slavery in the territories. The Constitution is not expressly safe from questions of this class spring. All our constitutional controversies and we divide upon them into majorities and minorities. If the minority will not acquiesce the majority must or the government must cease. There is no other alternative for continuing the government is acquiescence on one side or the other. If a minority in such case will

secede rather than acquiesce they make a precedent which in turn will divide and Room them for a minority of their own will secede from them. When ever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority. For instance why may not any portion of a new Confederacy a year or two hence arbitrarily secede again precisely as portions of the present union now claim to secede from and. All who cherish disunion sentiments are now being educated to the exact temper of doing this. Is there such perfect identity of interests among the states to compose a new union as to produce harmony only and prevent renewed secession. Plainly the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible.

The rule of a minority is a permanent arrangement is wholly inadmissible. So that rejecting the majority principle. Anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left. I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court. Nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case upon the parties to a suit. As to the object of that suit while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case still the evil effect following it being limited to that particular case with the chance that it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases can better be borne than could be evils of a different practice at the same time. The candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by the decisions of the Supreme

Court the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people have ceased to be their own rulers having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunals. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases properly brought before them. And it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes. 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. This is the only substantial dispute the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave trade are each as well enforced perhaps as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the drive legal obligation in both cases. And if you break over in each. This I think cannot be perfectly cured. And it would be worse in both cases after the

separation of the sections than before the foreign slave trade now imperfectly suppressed would be ultimately revived without restriction. In one section. While fugitive slaves now only partially surrendered would not be surrendered at all by the other. Physically speaking we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each other nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other. But the different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face and intercourse either amicable or hostile must continue between them. Is it possible then to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before. Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws. Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends. Suppose you go to war. You cannot fight always and when after much lost on both sides and no gain on either you

cease fighting the identical or questions as to the terms of intercourse are again upon you. This country with its institutions belongs to the people who inhabit it whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. I cannot be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the national constitution amended. Well I make no recommendation of amendments. I fully recognize the rightful authority of the people over the whole subject to be exercised in either of the moments prescribed in the instrument itself. And I should under existing circumstances favor rather than oppose a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act upon it. I will venture to add that to me the convention mode seems preferable. And then it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions originated by others not especially chosen for the purpose and which might not be precisely such as they would wish

to either accept or refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution which amendment however I have not seen has passed Congress to the effect that the federal government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the states including that of persons held to service to avoid misconstruction of what I have said. I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law. I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable. Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people. Is there any better or equal hope in the world in our present differences is either party without faith of being in the right. If the Almighty ruler of nations with his eternal truth and justice be on your side of the North or on yours of the South that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunals. The American people. By the frame of the government under which we live this same people have wisely

given their public servants but little power for mischief and have with equal wisdom provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance. No administration by any extreme of wickedness or folly can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years. My countryman won it all. Think calmly and well upon this whole subject nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would never take deliberately that object will be frustrated by taking time. But no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of us are now dissatisfied still have the old constitution unimpaired and on this sensitive point the laws of your own framing under it. Well the new administration will have no immediate power. It wouldn't change either if it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute. There still is no single good reason for precipitate

action. Intelligence. Patriotism. Christianity and a firm reliance on him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust in the best way. All our present difficulties. In your hands my dissatisfied fellow countrymen and not in mine is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not ACLU you can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government. Well I shall have the most solemn one to preserve protect and defend it. I am loath to COAS. We are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriot great to every living heart and stone all over this broad land will yet swell the chorus of union when again touched as surely they will be by the better angels of our

nature. Specific reactions to Lincoln's first inaugural are quite arresting. A Craig Baird summarizes them in these words. The New York Times observed of the speech that its conciliatory tone and frank outspoken declaration of loyalty to the whole country captured the hearts of many here too for a post Mr. Lincoln. The Chicago Times denounced it as a loose disjointed rambling affair. The South reacted strongly against the United rule. The Richmond dispatch for example said the inaugural address of Abraham Lincoln in our great civil war as we have predicted it would from the beginning. The sword is drawn and the scabbard thrown away. Shortly there after the conflict had begun with former Fort Sumter surrender on April 13th after a 24 hour bombardment the war was on. Even though the war was on Lincoln frequently made overtures of peace to the rebel states. One such appeal was in Lincoln's message to Congress in special session July 4th 1861

just four months after his first inaugural. What concerns us are the last few pages of the address which read as follows. This is essentially a people's contest on the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men to lift artificial weights from all shoulders to clear the paths of lot of pursuit for all to forward all and on fettered start any fair chance in the race of life yielding to partial and temporary departures from necessity. This is the leading object of the government for whose existence we contend. I am most happy to believe that the plain people understand and appreciate this. It is worthy of note that while in this the government's hour of trial large numbers of those in the Army and Navy who have been favored with the offices have resigned and proved false to the hand which had pampered them. Not one common soldier or common sailor is known to have deserted his flag. Great honor is due to those officers who remain true despite the example of their treacherous

associates. But the greatest our and most important fact of all is the unanimous firmness of the common soldiers and common sailors to the last man as far as is known. They have successfully resisted the traitorous efforts of those whose commands but an hour before they had abate is absolute law. This is the patriotic instinct of the plain people. They understand without an argument that destroying the government which was made by Washington means no good to them. Our popular government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it are people have already settled the successful a stablish ing and the successful administering of it. One still remains its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it. It is now for them to demonstrate to the world that those who can barely carry an election can also suppress a rebellion that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided there can be no successful appeal back to bullets that there can be no successful appeal except to ballots themselves at

succeeding elections. Such will be a great lesson of peace teaching man that what they cannot take by an election neither can they take it by a war teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war. Lest there be some on easiness in the minds of candid men. As to what is to be the course of the government towards the southern states after the rebellion shall have been suppressed. The executive deems it proper to say it will be his purposes then as ever to be guided by the Constitution and the laws and that he probably will have no different understanding of the powers and duties of the federal government relatively to the rights of the states and the people under the Constitution than that expressed in the inaugural address. He desires to preserve the government that it may be administered for all as it was administered by the man who made it. It was with the deepest regret that the executive found the duty of employing the war power in defense of the government forced upon him. He could but perform this duty or surrender the existence of the government. No compromise by public servants could in this case be a cure. Not that

compromises are not often proper but that no popular government can long survive a marked precedent that those who carry an election can only save the government from a meet immediate destruction by giving up the main point upon which the people gave the election. The people themselves and not their servants can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions. As a private citizen the executive could not have consented that these institutions shall perish. Much less could he be trail so vast and so sacred trust as these free people had confided to him. He felt that he had no moral right to shrink or even to count the chances of his own life and what might follow in full view of his great responsibility. He has so far done what he has deemed his duty. You will now according to your own judgment perform yours he sincerely hopes that your views and your action may so accord with his as to assure all faithful citizens who have been disturbed in their rights of a certain and speedy restoration to them under the Constitution and the laws. And having thus chosen our course without guile

and with pure purpose let us renew our trust in God and go forward without fear and with manly hearts. Perhaps this last paragraph bears repeating in a day when we live in the shadow of war and even in war itself we must learn to see the madness of it all. We must with utmost determination learn to be peacemakers. Letting the better angels of our nature have their way. Still if we are somehow unavoidably assaulted clearly threatened with personal destruction we might take Creech from Lincoln's parting thought. And having thus chosen our course without guile and with pure purpose let us renew our trust in God and go forward without fear and with manly hearts. This. Link of a social prophet the seventh that a series of readings on Abraham Lincoln

commemorating Illinois sesquicentennial today's reading by Northern Illinois University speech instructor Marvin sedar was entitled words to a divided nation in the shadow of war. Next week Lincoln's war and ours. A production of WNYC Radio in Northern Illinois University. This program was distributed by the national educational radio network.