Response To Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

When Abraham Lincoln was sworn in for his second term as president in 1865, he didn’t bore his audience with a long and frivolous inaugural address. Instead, he used his speech to reunify the divided country. Our 16th president’s tone, use of repetition, allusion and syntax convinced both the north and south that they shared commonalities, because of their devotion to God and their common opinions on the prolonged Civil War. The purpose of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address was not to rally the north to win the Civil War, or to prove to the people that he was a worthy president, but to consolidate our broken nation at the tail end of a continuous and bloody conflict.

In his Second Inaugural Address speech by Abraham Lincoln, incorporates biblical references and compares the North and South in order to bring them together and unite the country. Lincoln indirectly questions the ethics behind owning slaves by referring to the bible and reveals the South using God as an excuse for racism. Quoting the bible, Lincoln concludes that “He now wills to remove” implying that God wishes to abolish slavery. The former president convoys God to have “his own purposes” suggesting to leave the war in God's hands.

Isaiah Feliciano To overcome a challenge, leaders may make and deliver speeches to encourage people to work together. A common and major issue is the divisions among the populace. The three speeches, “The Gettysburg Address”, by Abraham Lincoln, “Robert Kennedy’s Remarks on the Assassination of Martin Luther King,Jr.”, by Robert Kennedy, and “Coach Boone’s Speech at Gettysburg”, by Coach Boone, attempt to encourage people overcome the challenge of disunification. One example of these leaders is during the American Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln made a speech after one of the bloodiest battles in the war, Gettysburg.

I originally forgot to consider the European power factor in his timing and urgency, and do agree it was a strong factor in his timing. I believe more influential were the internal factors of keeping the union bonded together and not polarizing the issue that was already so much a point of contention among the Union and border states. Also I strongly agree that Lincoln was a genius in placing clear motivational distinction between the Union and Confederate, by making the North for freedom and the South against it. He intentionally made the divide bigger to motivate the Union to continue in a long war.

Abraham Lincoln’s assassination was unjust because he was a helper, and he was a role model; however, some believe he had too much power. There are many reasons why Abraham Lincoln’s assassination was unjust. First, it was unjust because he was a helper and he free the slaves. Also he helped out during the civil war.

In 1858, Abraham Lincoln lost a U.S. Senate race to Stephen A. Douglas after a series of debates on slavery. In 1859, Lincoln and Douglas delivered speeches on the Ohio Statehouse grounds. Lincoln came to Columbus in support of William Dennison, the Republican candidate for Ohio Governor. In his first Ohio speech, Lincoln spoke to a small crowd of fifty people on the east terrace of the Statehouse.

Abraham Lincoln was an extreme activist for the emancipation of slaves. For the previous eight years before Lincoln came into office, Pierce and Buchanan were the president and felt that slavery should be upheld in the south, much to the disapproval of the free-soil party, later to become the Republican Party. Once Lincoln received the place as president for the republican party, a few of the states in the south began to succeed from the Union and a month after his inaugural address was the commencement of the Civil War. The Union hoped that the war would be over quickly and that they could return to their daily life, but that hope was forgotten after a Confederate victory in the Battle at Bull Run. Lincoln was vaguely familiar with wartime strategies and atmospheres after serving in the Black Hawk War but surprised many with his excellent command and leadership during the Civil War.

“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not to themselves”-Abraham Lincoln The two texts that we read were Narrative life of Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth: Ain’t I A Woman they tell us about their life and what they had to do in order to get their freedom. When there was slavery, it divided people like African Americans and Americans. The people that had freedom were white men and not black men or women.

Abraham Lincoln, infamously nicknamed “Honest Abe,” was an important influential person in history because of his impactful speeches, unique ideologies, and of course for being the 16th president of the United States. Lincoln’s legacy began when he was born on February 12, 1809 in Hardin County, Kentucky. He was named after his grandfather and had one older sister named Sarah and one younger brother named Thomas. Thomas died as a baby, and shortly after, Abraham’s mother died in 1818 (Lincoln was 9 years old). Growing up, Lincoln had no formal education but he taught himself through borrowing and studying books.

Abraham Lincoln had an evolution when it came to dealing with slavery. Many believe Lincoln was an abolitionist, so what is an abolitionist? An abolitionist is one who abhors slavery in every aspect, wants slavery ended, and all rights and privileges’ of the white man given to the black man. “They didn’t care about working within the existing political system, or under the Constitution, which they saw as unjustly protecting slavery and slave owners. Leading abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison called the Constitution a covenant with death and an agreement with Hell, and went so far as to burn a copy at a Massachusetts rally in 1854.”