Jim Deitsch

April 30, 2018

American Civil War

Reflection on Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address

“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.” Lincoln means, as is probably apparent, that the
South is the aggressor dragging the North into unwilling combat. I have several problems with this
statement.

First, the South did not make war. They undertook an action that they knew could lead to war, but they
did not initiate the conflict itself. Lincoln was the one who ordered the first military engagement. This
means that, as a second point of contradiction, the North did not “accept” war, it pursued it. The North
SHOULD have done this, and the end result was better for everyone, but to say that the North was
passive is a glaringly obvious and harmful lie that would cause problems whenever reconciliation was
pursued.

These contradictions are so obvious that it is likely Lincoln meant that the actions of the South made war
inevitable, and the North could do nothing but respond. This is problematic because it implies the North
was innocent, that all the blood of the war was on the hands of the South. It completely ignores the
reality that was several decades of Northerners making concessions, writing compromises, avoiding the
topic, and many other means of allowing the problem to exist without confronting it head-on. If you
know a problem exists, but don’t do anything to stop it (or directly enable it, at varying points in history),
then you are not “accepting” war, you are suffering the consequences of your own actions or inactions.
The South bears a LOT of responsibility for the war, but the North bears responsibility as well.

Why is this important? It is important because it is impossible to “bind up the nation’s wounds”, as
Lincoln later desires, without acknowledging guilt on both sides. It does not have to be and should not
be equal, but it must be acknowledged. If, in official American policy, the South is considered to have
made the war, and the North considered to have merely accepted it, then reform would be impossible
and unfair, and centuries of resentment between the North and South would inevitably arise. Lincoln
desired a “just peace” founded on the unjust principle that was Northern absolution of guilt, which is a
fundamental impossibility. His initial claim and his ultimate desire are incompatible, which renders the
entire Second Inaugural Address mostly meaningless unless one of the two is altered.