Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural

Front Cover
Simon and Schuster, Nov 7, 2006 - Biography & Autobiography - 256 pages
As the day for Lincoln's second inauguration drew near, Americans wondered what their sixteenth president would say about the Civil War. Would Lincoln guide the nation toward “Reconstruction”? What about the slaves? They had been emancipated, but what about the matter of suffrage?

When Lincoln finally stood before his fellow countrymen on March 4, 1865, and had only 703 words to share, the American public was stunned. The President had not offered the North a victory speech, nor did he excoriate the South for the sin of slavery. Instead, he called the whole country guilty of the sin and pleaded for reconciliation and unity.

In this compelling account, noted historian Ronald C. White Jr. shows how Lincoln's speech was initially greeted with confusion and hostility by many in the Union; commended by the legions of African Americans in attendance, abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass among them; and ultimately appropriated by his assassin John Wilkes Booth forty-one days later.

Filled with all the facts and factors surrounding the Second Inaugural, Lincoln's Greatest Speech is both an important historical document and a thoughtful analysis of Lincoln's moral and rhetorical genius.

From inside the book

Contents

Handwritten Text of the Second Inaugural
13
Printed Text of the Second Inaugural
17
Inauguration Day
21
At this second appearing
43
CONTENTS
47
And the war came
60
somehow the cause of the war
81
Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God
100
The Almighty has His own purposes
121
every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword
150
With malice toward none
169
EPILOGUE
200
BIBLIOGRAPHY
227
INDEX
243

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About the author (2006)

Ronald C. White, Jr. was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and grew up in California. He graduated from Northwestern University in 1961 with a B.A., received an M.Div. in 1964 from Princeton Theological Seminary, and earned a Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1972. He also studied as a World Council of Churches Scholar at Lincoln Theological College in England. White has written several books, including three on Abraham Lincoln: The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words, Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural, and A. Lincoln: A Biography. He has also been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and The Christian Science Monitor. White is Professor of American Religious History Emeritus at San Francisco Theological Seminary, and he has taught at UCLA, Princeton Theological Seminary, Whitworth University, Colorado College, Fuller Seminary, and Rider University.

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