Lincoln's words are his memorial
James Forsyth 6:49pm
The view from the top of the steps on the Lincoln Memorial on in Washington, DC is one of the finest views in the American capital. You look across the reflecting pool, down the national mall to the Washington Monument and to the Capitol beyond. Standing there, at the place where Martin Luther King delivered his ‘I have a dream' speech, you can almost feel the arc of American history bending towards justice. This tilt would not have been possible without Lincoln’s determination to win the Civil War and his realisation as the war continued that slavery could not be contained, as he had argued in his first inaugural, but must be destroyed.
Go inside the memorial and you realise the immense importance of words in American political culture, something which at least partly explains the appeal of Barack Obama. Carved on the south and north walls respectively are the Gettysburg Address and Lincoln’s second inaugural. These are truly great speeches. Reading them never fails to live your sprits and as with reading the Bible and Shakespeare one finds that phrases one has used for years actually come from there.
There is something rather marvellous about the fact that American schoolchildren have to learn the Gettysburg Address by heart. Government of the people, by the people, for the people works best when the citizenry understand the history and the sacrifices that were necessary to bring them to this state.
PS Lincoln’s second inaugural contains the most succinct and damming condemnation of what the slaveholders of the South were doing, “wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces.” If you have quarter of an hour, do read the Gettysburg Address and the second inaugural. I promise you, you will feel richer whether it is the first or hundredth time that you have read them.
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DC Cat
February 12th, 2009 11:59pm Report this commentThe reason the second inaugural is regarded as so great is that Lincoln was assasinated early in his second term. The promises could never be broken
Conservative Cabbie
February 13th, 2009 8:12am Report this commentThe Gettysburg address is my favourite pece of political writing. "that government : of the people, by the people, for the people," - Has anyone else described the democratic ideal so succinctly and eloquently?
Bartholomew Warburton
February 13th, 2009 9:51am Report this commentHaving read the second inaugural address for the first time I am amazed at it. The war may have had slavery at its core, but the real causus belli was the right of states to secede from the Union, slavery was merely the flashpoint for what are real principles. The North won and, as this address already shows, subtly changed the terms of debate. The issue of a State's/Nation's right to leave a political union remains with us today.
Marbury
February 13th, 2009 12:40pm Report this commentDC Cat, the reason the second inaugural is regarded as so great is that it's an astonishingly powerful and beautiful speech. And it doesn't make any promises. Have you read it?
I highly recommend, by the way, Gary Wills's book about the Gettysburg address, 'Lincoln At Gettysburg'.
Hereford
February 13th, 2009 1:33pm Report this commentNo cabbie, but the statements also demonstrates the absolute bollocks of the democratic ideal. Short of holding a populace wide referendum on every single decision, government of the people by the people is a myth. Democracy, in the truth of its application thus far, is nothing more than serial dictatorship.
Trafalgar
February 13th, 2009 4:08pm Report this commentGore Vidals' 'Lincoln' is the finest biography of any political leader that I have read.
He just about held the union together single-handedly despite a succession of useless generals, political opposition from within his own cabinet, a mad wife and much else besides.
It's a worthwhile read which also places the inaugural and Gettysburg addresses in their correct context.
Ray
February 13th, 2009 4:54pm Report this commentLincoln's Gettysburg Address is a useful lesson to all aspiring politicians: never say in 5,000 words what you can more productively say in 500.
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