On August 28, 1962, Congressman Jim Wright gave me a treasured volume entitled Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States. In the front of the book he inscribed: “For my valued friends, Don and Wanda Woodard, with very personal regards, Jim Wright.” For more than 50 years I have frequently consulted this treasure chest of American history.
From George Washington to John F. Kennedy, all these inaugural addresses are inspiring. But there is one that seems in this divided nation could fit the present time of tweets about a wall, immigration, DACA, tax bill, Russia, Obamacare – and don’t forget Hillary. That one would be Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural. As we observe the 209th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth on Feb. 12, his words are well worth remembering.
In the very beginning of the speech, the 16th president said: “I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement.” The rest of the address is devoted entirely to begging the South not to secede. Here is how the old rail splitter closed his fervent appeal, the essence of eloquence, for a peaceful resolution as the unhearing South set the stage for national disaster:
“My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new Administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there is still no good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust in the best way all your present difficulty.
“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect and defend it.’
“I am loathe to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
Come quickly, Better Angels!
Don Woodard is a Fort Worth businessman and author of Black Diamonds! Black Gold! The Saga of Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company.