Description
The Second Inaugural is a speech given by Abraham Lincoln on March 4, 1865. In it, Lincoln calls for reconciliation and unity between the North and South, and apologizes for the Civil War. Many people in the North were confused and hostile towards the speech at first, but it was later praised by many African Americans and abolitionists. John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln forty-one days after the speech, using parts of it as his justification.
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Lincoln's Greatest Speech is both an important historical document and a thoughtful analysis of Lincoln's moral and rhetorical genius.
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