Abraham Lincoln: Second Inaugural Address

Impact

In his prediction of the Second Inaugural Address's historic significance, Lincoln was prescient. While the Gettysburg Address has traditionally been seen as his greatest statement of the significance of the Civil War, recent scholarship argues that the Second Inaugural Address is the definitive statement of the war's meaning. Some observers thought as much. Charles Francis Adams, Jr., opined that it was, in its simplicity, “the historical keynote” of the war (White, p. 184). For those interested in Lincoln's religious beliefs, the speech is seen as his clearest statement of his theology, although biographers differ on whether it is best characterized as fatalism or Providence and whether it was shaped by his Primitive Baptist upbringing or Old Presbyterian worship. The final paragraph has also been used to articulate America's vision of itself as well as to highlight instances when the nation failed to live up to Lincoln's mandate.