“A Sacred Effort”: Lincoln's Second Inaugural and the Problem of Justice

Abstract

AbstractLincoln's Second Inaugural has both impressed and perplexed audiences since its initial delivery. While most have been deeply moved by his call for “malice toward none” and “charity for all,” they have often been equally puzzled and even put off by the stern religiosity on display in the paragraph prior to his peroration. He was even accused, at the time, of “substituting religion for statesmanship.” I argue that it is his statesmanlike use of religion—indeed, of a new hybrid (still unnamed) religion, Judeo‐Christianity—that provided the moral and psychological ground for overcoming the “malice” that so often attends the end of wars. Unlike the post religious (and uncharitable) statesmanship of the Allies in World War I that contributed to the outbreak of World War II, Lincoln's statesmanship in the Second Inaugural provides a model for how to keep the “settling of scores”—the desire for punitive justice—from snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.