LINCOLN

’S SECOND

INAUGURAL ADDRESS

A VI S

I ON O

F TH E U

N I ON H

E A L E D

A photo of Lincoln's second inaugural when he spoke about the

need for both sides of the nation to return as the nation. But in the upper right hand corner there is his future killer who did not believe in this vision, as the southerners didn’t believe the North's beliefs.

KEY TERMS YOU MIGHT NEED TO KNOW TO FULLY UNDERSTAND THE INAUGURAL:

Border States -   ·  The border states were a block of states that practiced slavery while remaining loyal to the Union. These states included Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri. They played a large strategic role in the Civil War, as beliefs on slavery and union were divided in these areas. Although they though of seceding at times, the border states stayed faithful to the union despite strict federal controls and “war-torn” conditions.

Secession  -   ·  Secession is the formal withdrawal of a member state from an association or union. Different states had threatened secession in the first decades of the history of the United States, but it was only with South Carolina's secession from the Union on December 20, 1860 that the possibility became a reality.

The Confederacy -   ·  Organized after a group of southern states

seceded from the Union, the Confederate States of America wished to establish themselves as an independent nation, and fought for this right during the Civil War. The confederacy was led by President Jefferson Davis. Confederates lacked the support of the international community because they continually relied on slavery as an economic producer. Four years after organizing, this association of eleven states fell to defeat, and gradually joined the United States again.

National Union -   ·  The National Union Party was formed in 1864 out of a coming together of Republicans and War Democrats in an attempt to keep the Union war effort strong and re-elect Lincoln. In order to produce a more balanced ticket, the National Unionists nominated Tennessee military governor Andrew Johnson for Vice President. Although their chances looked bleak at times, Lincoln and Johnson pulled ahead in the November elections for a convincing victory.

OVER ALL SUMMARY OF LINCOLN’S POLITICAL LIFE

Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809, and the United States of America had just begun to emerge as a cohesive nation. The federal government had been organized a little more than twenty years before. The country maintained its original thirteen colonies, still with a lot of territory to be settled. Lincoln's youth would correspond with rapid frontier movements and an overriding spirit of pioneer expansionism.

 Into this intense atmosphere, Abraham Lincoln, a former state legislator

and congressman from Illinois, was elected as president in 1860 on the Republican’s side. The Republicans were a blossoming party composed largely of abolitionists who took advantage of the regional discord that divided the more established Democratic party. With the weakest order ever enjoyed by an American president, Abraham Lincoln was given the challenge of resolving the two-sided question of secession and slavery.

WHAT IS ABOLITIONISM?Abolitionism was a movement to end slavery

completely in the United States. It grew into only northern campaign by the 1830s, taking of in New England, where prominent writers and politicians were basically the heads of the abolitionists.

-Around 1860 the Republicans were mostly abolitionists.

-The southerners were very much against abolitionism.

When South Carolina left the Union six weeks

after Lincoln's election, and fired on federal forces at Fort Sumter four months later, this civil war that Lincoln and many northerners anticipated, had come. Before the end of Lincoln's presidency, secession would be controlled and the institution of slavery collapsed. 

LINCOLN’S LIFE AS A CHILD: Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky,1809, to Nancy Hanks

and Tomas Lincoln who had low social standing and little education. During his childhood and early youth, the family would move several times, first to Indiana and later to Illinois, as Lincoln got to know his country. Nancy Hanks, died when Lincoln was still a boy, and the next year his father, Thomas remarried to Sarah Bush Johnston.

WHAT HAPPENED AT THE NEAR END OF THE CIVIL WAR?

The Civil War made both the north and south suffer, and though the Union had more numbers, they were often overwhelmed by the superior military minds of the Confederacy. Even though there was heavy criticisms from all sides, Lincoln maintained enough support to win re-election in 1864. As the war drew to a close, Lincoln made preparations for a charitable reconstruction plan to help unify the nation once again. This is when Lincoln gave his second inaugural.

The Civil War had just ended, and many Northerners wanted to hold Southern supporters and rebels criminally blamed for their rebellion against the United States. Lincoln gave most of them forgiveness and move on past the Civil War era to "bind up the nation's wounds." Lincoln said in the inaugural that the U.S. had paid the price for leaving the slavery question unresolved in the beginning of the united state’s early stages as a nation and were paying for it through the war. Lincoln believed the war mostly settled that issue and it was time to rebuild the country since it just redefined itself through four years of deadly war. This speech was designed to show his ideas on this and to think about moving forward as a nation.

THIS IN THE SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS AND THE LARGER WORDS ARE THE ONES USED MORE

WHY DID LINCOLN TALK ABOUT GOD SO MUCH?The sociological need for a destiny because they need to think

that life has a meaning, a purpose or goal. If there was no destiny this would mean all the suffering and deaths would be meaningless and arbitrary. I there was no meaning to anything, this makes them feel like they have no power over there fate, slaves to chance. Perhaps the reason they were so against slavery is because they need to believe that they are controlling there own fate, making them free. The slaves in the south are what the northerners are afraid of becoming, because this underlying fear has built up into a civil war and society has made slavery the worst possible thing. But the fact is they are in civil war, is a glaring contradiction to all those beliefs because the Union couldn’t hold together. People begin to lose hope in their faith, maybe all of this happened for no reason, all because the north is determined to force the south to realize the nation’s “destiny” that the northerners thinks they should have. This is why Lincoln feels the need to bring in god and the bible.

WHY WAS THE SPEECH IMPORTANT?-Lincoln was showing the north that, although this has been a

long trial by god, we can “heal the nations wounds” through our unity.

-It was a big concept to the South that if they would be gracious as well their wounds could be healed faster and we could be united

-it was the duty of all Americans whether North or South to see that all people would be treated equitably so that healing and prosperity could return to the united states.