Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Address

Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address of reconciliation was an attempt to convince the Union to restore friendly relations with the South and heal the torn nation. Lincoln takes his audience to the past, present, and future by mentioning his First Inaugural Address, the nation’s current condition and position, and his blueprint of the future and how to achieve such desired goals. His placement of blame and his stunning hope for reunification and reconstruction is best achieved through syntactical arrangements and appeal to the authority of God. Lincoln contemplates the effects of the war by discussing how it started, its duration, and the casualties to put a litany of blame on the South; he accomplishes so by utilizing antithesis, juxtaposition, anaphoric repetition, and chiasmus. Although Lincoln does not directly mention that the war was the South’s fault, he makes it blatantly obvious through the antithesis, “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…” The juxtaposition pairs two contrasting ideas together and engages his audience to clearly understand him. The unexpected duration that “neither party expected …the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause…” communicates that the war came in spite of the best intentions of political leaders of the nation.
By appealing to common Christian values, Lincoln emphasizes the similarities between the northerners and southerners regarding their foundational values. It incorporates many of the themes of the religious revivals: sin, sacrifice, and redemption. The chiasmus, “let us judge not, that we be not judged,” reflects the Christian value of forgiveness, an action that the North and South should take and apply to their current circumstances. Lincoln exemplifies that the war was God’s plan, “He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came,” to encourage both sides to remain faithful and remember God’s teachings. Although there already were a myriad of deaths caused by vengeance, “every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword,” Lincoln’s utilizes the Biblical allusion, “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether,” to illustrate that the he, himself, did not cause the war. However, because God intended for this war to occur, it must have an important meaning and symbolize the necessity to reunite as a nation.
Lincoln addresses a deeply torn country in the midst of a tragic war and to end his speech, he has a peculiar evolution and drastic shift in tone as he goes from a litany of blame for the South, to discussing peace, “with malice toward none, with charity for all.” With this ringing, magnanimous conclusion, “let us strive on to finish the work we are in… bind up the nation’s wounds,” Lincoln skillfully shifts his accountability to the war and diverts the audience to look toward the future by assigning guilt to the South. With the manipulation of Biblical allusions and the appeal to a higher power, he interpreted slavery as an offense to God, and the war signifying God’s intentions.