York. His honors include the National Humanities medal presented by president george w. Bush. Before we begin, i ask that you please turn off your cell phones and other electronic devices, and now please join me in welcoming our guest. Thank you. [applause] mr. Holzer good evening. Happy lincolns birthday. I am so proud and grateful to be asked to do another lincolns birthday talk here at the New York Historical society. Two years ago, it was snowing. Last year it was sleeting with ice. I think lincoln might have been another president who was not too unhappy about global warming. Just a guess. [laughter] tonight, i want to give a speech about a speech. And here is a spoiler alert. Only masterpieces qualify for that kind of analysis, so let me call your attention to the fact that lincolns sin second inaugural address, if you had any doubt, is indeed a masterpiece. I think most of you already know the speech, at least the most familiar part of it, with malice toward none and charity for all. That phrase long ago became part of the national vocabulary. So the go to quote in america about forgiveness and reconciliation. But i also think it has been misused frequently. Interpreted and deployed as a call for sectional reconciliation between southern and northern brothers after a bloody civil war. I think in fact it is less than that, and also much more. A line 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. It is kindly. It is generous. It also tends to win principal attention for one small section of a speech that was less than the sum of its parts. I think the rest of the address deserves attention too, even seven score and 15 years later, r. I think it is time to give it its full due in an age when president ial eloquence is no longer expected. [laughter] when pundits seem amazed when sidents state on message stay on message, it is worth recalling a time when words were valued and orators were stars, cultural superstars, and politicians even in the most divisive time in American History yes, much more divisive than our own were generally respected and admired, even if people disagreed. Enough so to inspire the people who created the Lincoln Memorial, which i tried to cover in my last book, monument men, and inspired the crafters of the Lincoln Memorial to include the words of the second inaugural address, right alongside those of the iconic gettysburg address to flank the enthroned statue of lincoln. First, some background about linkedin come along before some background about lincoln, long before he became a statue. Because all great messages are products of their creators and environments. The second inaugural is no exception. What remains exceptional is the man who wrote it and his extraordinary evolution. First of all, not a day of formal training. Completely selfeducated. Widely read in the bible and in poetry,are and and of course in political writings. His reading inspired him to use the cadences of the king james bible, inspired him to the old and new testaments as scripture and inspiration. He also was a voracious reader of newspapers. It fueled the partisanship age. Partisan part of abraham lincoln. Although we remember him as a great writer, leader, and ultimately a martyr, he was proud to call himself a politician. And that meant winning and retaining support, and winning from the middle or opposition middle of the opposition. And all of the argumentation of the day was not on the stump, was not personal, it was also in print. He was a great student of the speeches of the american past. He knew webster, calhoun, clay. He was a student of american oratory. But at the beginning of his career, he was basically a courtroom lawyer and kind of a selfdeprecating orator. Even as far as the lincolndouglass debates, his speeches were filled with sarcasm and selfdeprecation. His First Political speech said something like, i am humble abraham lincoln. My politics are short and sweet like the old womans dance. Think about that for a second. If elected, i shall be grateful. If not, it will be all the same. He was not elected, so he did not use that line again. [laughter] his first speech as a congressman on the mexicanamerican war, he wanted to criticize the idea of military glory as an aspiration. He said, did you know i am a military hero . Yes, sir. In the days of the black hawk war, an indian war in illinois, i fought, bled, and came away. It is quite certain i did not break my sword, for i had none to break. But i had a good many bloody struggles with thie mosquitoes. Although i never fainted from loss of blood, i can truly say i was often very hungry. But he morphed into a different kind of speaker. He needed a great issue, and the great issue of the middle period of his life, after he had focused on infrastructure, tariffs, and other things that thatot as sexy as the ones ultimately galvanized him, it was american slavery. It was the effort to end the missouri compromise, to spred slavery into new western territories. And as he put it in 1854 in his greatest prepresident ial speech, this declared indifference but covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, i cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it enables the enemies of free institutions to with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites. He also began demonstrating familiarity with scripture. And this was not unusual, nor was it unusual for his audiences to understand the references he made. Unlike most speakers of the day, lincoln never said, as the bible says, or, as shakespeare said. Thehe bard said, in some of more pompous references you see from the period. He just slipped the lines into his text and assumed, correctly based on the familiarity people had with shakespeare and the bible, that they would understand. So of course most famously at the beginning of his campaign against Stephen Douglas for the senate in 1858, a house divided against itself cannot stand. Our own senator William Seward in new york had said something similar. He said the battle between the slave forces and antislave forces represented an irrepressible conflict. For that, he was branded as an unelectablel and radical who was predicting the dissolution of the union. Lincoln emerged as the centrist. And yet he had said the same thing. What was the difference . He had quoted the book of matthew. William seward had simply issued a warning. Other flashes of brilliance, of course, would follow before he became president. Most notably, 160 years ago this february month at cooper union, let us have faith that might makes right. Leaving his hometown of springfield to assume the this is the 1854 lincoln, worth showing if only because of the tie. [laughter] and here is the famous photograph made on broadway and 10th street the morning of his cooper Union Address. But here, departing illinois in 1861, suddenly his style takes another dramatic turn. It is leaner, less political. He seems inspired and spirited by the crisis he is about to face. I now leave not knowing when i will return with the task before me greater than that which rested upon washington. There is another thing that would get ordinary orators in trouble. You dont compare yourself to george washington, ever. So how did lincoln save himself . Im giving you these biblical references because they lead up to the inaugural. He adds, without the assistance of that divine being, i cannot succeed. With that assistance, i cannot fail. Trusting in him who can go with me and remain with you and be everywhere for good. Let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To his care, commending you if i as i hope in your prayers you will commend me. I bid you an affectionate farewell. Then he stands on the portico of the capitol and speaks about a different kind of scripture and a different kind of religion. What he once called political religion and his career, 30 early in his career years , 30 before. This time it is about the ties that bind americans together, or should. He talked about the mystic chords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone across the land, which he said would swell across across the union when touched by the better angels of our nature. The irony is that paragraph had been drafted by the aforementioned new yorker William Seward, but elegantly almostand massaged into a prayer by abraham lincoln. If you recognize those words, it is probably because barack obama said them, repeated them, the night he was elected in 2008 from lincoln park. Appropriately enough. The eloquence continued. And we are building to the zenith of his oratory. In 1862, he talks to congress, s. In those days, state of the Union Address was not delivered in person, but they could be quite majestic anyway. The clerks read them. We cannot escape history nor personal significance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope on f earth. Then the absolute xena scums at gettysburg in the absolute zenith comes at gettysburg in november 1863 when he vows that government shall not perish from the earth. A speech so surpassingly great that it has its own legends, including the one that it was scrawled on the back of an envelope, on a train, when lincoln demonstrably could not write on trains. That Farewell Speech to springfield he tried to write out afterwards, but it was so rocky he gave the text to a secretary and the rest is recorded in the secretarys hand. In fact, he wrote the gettysburg address carefully and diligently while nursing his small son from a mild case of smallpox, which he then got. If the gettysburg ceremony had been on november 20 and not november 19, it probably would not have been delivered because lincoln came down with smallpox on the way home from gettysburg and was attended by his valet, an africanamerican man named William Johnson whom hed hired against the wishes of the irishamerican doorman of that white house. He had quite a time getting him on the payroll. And the reason i think it was a serious illness was because William Johnson died a few weeks later of smallpox. Abraham lincoln collected his final salary warrants personally. But that is a digression. Another lesson of gettysburg is received, rapturously nor was it attacked at the time. It was received, and this will be true of all his speeches, prepresident ial and president ial, it was received politically, in a partisan way. Republicans loved his speeches. Democrats hated his speeches. If you read the newspaper criticism, it all breaks along party lines. The 1864 Election Campaign is a really big challenge for abraham lincoln. First of all, he is the first president to run for a second term since andrew jackson. Second of all, it is not easy to run for president in a country that is not only broken in half but in which perhaps half a Million People had already died. Death had struck every household in some way in the united states, or the disunited states. As lincoln said in philadelphia during the early days of the campaign, the war has carried mourning to almost every home until it could almost be said that the heavens are hung in black. By the way, that is a quote. I dont know if anybody would have recognized it at the time. You had to be really good with your shakespeare. That is from henry vi part one. Not often performed then or now. But it is really appropriate because the next line is, yield day to night. Comets importing change of time and states. Pretty appropriate to the divided states. The other thing going on with lincoln is a fatalism even as he fights hard for that second term. He is becoming a fatalist, he is becoming a religious fatalist, and here another controversy about how to interpret lincoln. He writes a memo to himself, discovered only after his death, in which he concludes the will of god prevails. In great contests, each party claims to act in accordance to with the will of god. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be both for and against the same thing at the same time. In the presence of war, it is quite possible gods purpose is Something Different than the purpose of either side. I am most ready to say god wills this contest and wills that it should not end yet. Keep that in mind as we get to the inaugural. The spring and summer of 1864 almost convinced lincoln he will lose the election. Republicans are defecting. His new Union Coalition is not working. The death toll is rising. Ulysses s. Grant is mired in a terrible campaign in virginia enormous loss of life. In virginia with enormous lossoflife. The campaign against him even in new york is totally racist in character. Elect abraham lincoln, and we will have a racially integrated society. The Democratic Campaign is as ugly as it has ever gotten in new york. In fact, lincoln did worse in 1864 than he did in 1860. There were efforts to get him to rescind the emancipation proclamation in exchange for a truce that will at least call a temporary halt to the war before the election. In his most desperate moments, the end of august 1864, he actually writes this memo saying, this morning, it looks like we are going to lose. Lets all pledge to support the next administration and try to save the union between the election and inauguration. Which, as you may know, was four months in. Then he folds up this memorandum and makes his cabinet members sign it, sight unseen. One of the most peculiar lawyerly moments of his administration. The lawyers in the audience can decide later if it was a valid contract if they did not read it, but they signed it. Is it the will of god or general sherman . The day of the Democratic Convention that adopts a peace plan form a peace platform and nominates an antiwar Vice President ial candidate and a propeace at most costs military man George Mcclellan as the democratic nominee, that day William Sherman takes atlanta. And although there was no polling at the time, there was a palpable sense of a momentum shift. And indeed on election day, even though in the early days mcclellan had been viewed as a peacemaker and lincoln no better than Jefferson Davis as a divisive force, things turned. But not before lincoln makes another Unusual Alliance with a longtime critic, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Worth discussing not only because President Trump thinks hes doing a great job, he knows you know that was in the press last year, but because david bright has written such a great biography of frederick that won the pull of surprise and a rash of other awards. Douglass is in the news. Lincoln asked him to the white house and got him to agree on this amazing plan to send africanamerican recruits into the Confederate States where possible and alert as many enslaved people as possible that the emancipation was in effect, and they should basically get out of the area and go to the nearest union camp, attach themselves to the union army, and liberate themselves. Because the emancipation proclamation is an executive order, and as we know president s can countermand executive orders and issue new executive orders. But then atlanta changes everything and lincoln wins 55 of the vote on election day. It sounds like a big victory, but of course the south does not vote so he does basically as well as he did in 1860. Then on Inauguration Day, this is an amazing photograph of the crowd gathering outside the capital. As you can see from the shine in the street, it was a cloudy, rainy day. Lincoln is again ready to examine great themes. Now at the very peak of his skills. A lesser man would have chosen a victory speech. The war is really winding down at this point. In fact, it will be over in four and a half weeks. He might have gone with a triumphant vindication that the death and devastation, a prediction of the wrap up of the war or condemnation of white southerners for fighting to preserve the slave system. Or he might have offered a specific message about how the contest might be concluded. Would it be brutal or merciful . With there be an occupation, or would there not be . As lincoln explained that day, it would be both brutal and merciful. His speech would be ambivalent but unforgettable. 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 uniform in the crowd. The first to be extensively photographed, and we might say the first with a mixed message. Keep in mind, this is an entirely different lincoln than had appeared four years earlier. This is a change of just four years. On the left is lincoln 11 days before his first inauguration. On the right is lincoln 30 days before his second inauguration. Emaciated, almost ghostly in appearance. And yet that mask that had overcome his face in 1861 had yielded to a slight smile, as if he knows the great work will be consummated. But he suffered much in the process. Here again, two life masks made five years apart. As his own secretary said, the first is a man young for his years. A face full of life and energy. The other so sad and peaceful in its infinite repose that a famous sculptor thought it was a death mask. Unspeakable sadness and also facing strength. Strength enough to summon himself to the occasion. Just to remind you of the order of events, it is opposite the inaugural schedule today. First there was the parade. Then the address. Then the swearingin. Thats exactly the opposite of the way we do it today. The politics of the day, the 13th amendment had passed and already been ratified by 18 of the 27 states required for ratification. That would not come until after his death, but it was on the road. Lincoln had ample justification to claim credit for the approaching transformation, but he planned no display of bravado that day and he intended to propose no specific vision for the future beyond freedom and reunion. It was not an entirely triumphant day. In fact, entering the rotunda of the capitol, he is walking inside, and this wil