Today is the actual date of President Lincoln’s birth and President Washington’s birthday is February 22nd. Now both dates are subsumed under the generic “Presidents Day”, which educationally gives the notion of all presidents, and so we forget the lasting and important contributions of these two exemplar Americans. On March 4, 1865, only 41 days before his assassination, President Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office for the second time. Lee would surrender to Grant in Appomattox, VA on April 9th. Lincoln’s second inaugural address previewed his plans for healing a once-divided nation. The speech is engraved on the north interior wall of the Lincoln Memorial. The speech resonates with Scripture. The day was rainy and muddy. And according to reports of the time:
Accounts vary as to the exact timing of the sun’s appearance, but observers noted that while Lincoln gave his address and took the oath of office, the clouds parted and the sun shone brightly on the ceremony. Lincoln’s secretary John G. Nicolaywrote to his fiancé Therena Bates that “Just at the time when the President appeared on the East portico to be sworn in, the clouds disappeared and the sun shone out beautifully all the rest of the day.” Michael Shiner, an African-American laborer at the Washington Navy Yard recorded in his diary, “Before he came out on the porch to take his [word omitted] the wind blew and it rained with out intermission and as soon as Mr. Lincoln came out the wind ceas[ed] blowing and the rain ceased raining and the Sun came out and it was as clear as it could be….” (from The Library of Congress blog)
Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address
“Fellow countrymen: at this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends is as well known to the public as to myself and it is I trust reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future no prediction in regard to it is ventured.
“On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it ~ all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place devoted altogether to saving the Union without war insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war ~ seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.
“One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves not distributed generally over the union but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen perpetuate and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered ~ that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses for it must needs be that offenses come but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which in the providence of God must needs come but which having continued through His appointed time He now wills to remove and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him. Fondly do we hope ~ fervently do we pray ~ that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’
“With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
Concordia and Koinonia 
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