Abraham Lincoln: Second Inaugural Address

Context

The year preceding Lincoln's Second Inaugural witnessed dramatic changes in public opinion throughout the North. Throughout most of 1864, it seemed likely that Lincoln would not be reelected. The nation was weary of war, and Democrats put forth as their candidate General George B. McClellan on a platform that called for peace negotiations. The Republican Party was divided, as it had been throughout the war. The issue of Reconstruction, or the process by which Confederate states would be returned to their proper relationship to the federal government, revealed splits within the party. Radicals wanted southern society refashioned, including legal equality for Blacks, the possibility of Black suffrage, and punitive measures against Confederates. Conservatives and moderates within the party balked at the revolutionary doctrines, favoring instead a plan for Reconstruction that secured emancipation without Black voting rights and stripped leading Confederates of their political rights. In December 1863 Lincoln offered his own plan for Reconstruction, which called for loyal state governments to be organized when one-tenth of the voting population in 1860 took an oath of loyalty to the Union. Confederates would have to accept emancipation, but publicly Lincoln did not press for Black suffrage, recognizing the limits of racial change among northern voters. Lincoln's political skill allowed him to thwart challenges from radicals within the party, and he secured the Republican nomination in June 1864.

Lincoln's prospects for reelection, however, hinged on military success. In 1864 the Union called for more volunteers, and Lincoln summoned General Ulysses S. Grant from the western theater to take command of the entire Union army as lieutenant general. In May, Grant began his Virginia offensive, which included the Battle of the Wilderness and the battles at Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor. The northern public recoiled from the casualties, which included losses of sixty thousand in a single month of fighting. Lincoln called for more volunteers in July and announced a draft for September if districts failed to meet their quotas. Northern communities strained under the pressures of luring volunteers through bounties.

During the same period, radicals in Congress, dissatisfied when the reconstructed state of Louisiana failed to provide for Black suffrage, offered their own plan for Reconstruction through the Wade-Davis bill. The legislation called for harsher measures for Reconstruction. Loyal state governments would be organized when a majority of voters had taken the oath of allegiance, rather than Lincoln's 10 percent. In addition, it required Confederates to take an ironclad oath maintaining that they had never aided the Confederacy and barred leading Confederates from holding office. The legislation also would have ended slavery. When the Wade-Davis bill passed Congress in July, Lincoln refused to act on it, rejecting Congress's authority over emancipation and desiring to uphold the loyal governments of Louisiana and Arkansas. He believed that his more lenient policy would undermine Confederate support and hasten the end of the war.

Facing criticism from both within and without, Lincoln believed he would be defeated in the November election. He also felt that he was bound to save the Union before his term expired and wrote as much in a private memorandum. When William Tecumseh Sherman captured Atlanta, however, public sentiment in the North began to change, as did Lincoln's prospects. While soldiers in the field had steadfastly supported Lincoln's candidacy, voters at home had increased confidence in the military prospects. Union forces controlled the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, isolating Robert E. Lee from his supplies. Their votes in November reflected this change. Lincoln was reelected with 212 electoral votes to George B. McClellan's 21 and a majority of almost 400,000 votes. Lincoln captured almost 80 percent of soldiers' votes.

As Sherman's army marched through Georgia and the Carolinas, calls for retribution against a defeated South emanated from the northern press, pulpits, and politicians. Northerners seemed to revel in the destruction of private property waged by Sherman's soldiers and embraced the tenets of total warfare targeted against southern civilians. Lincoln did not share in the mood of self-righteousness and vengeance. Following his election, he lobbied for the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in Congress, which was accomplished on the last day of January 1865. In February he met Confederate delegates at Fort Monroe, Maryland, and defined peace terms: cessation of hostilities, acceptance of emancipation, and reunion. Nothing came of his efforts to negotiate an end to the war, but in his Second Inaugural Address, Lincoln would craft a document that defined the tenor, though not the specifics, of a reconstructed nation.