Healing The Nation’s Wounds in the UNITED States of America Then and Now ~ President Abraham Lincoln’s “Malice Toward None” Speech

President Abraham Lincoln’s “Malice Toward None” speech in his Second Inaugural Address and Start of Reconciliation Between North and South Near the End of the Civil War on March 4, 1865 which sought to heal our divided nation could just as appropriately be delivered today.

One of the phrases that jumped out to me as I read this famous speech again was, “Both read the same bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other.”

The hearts of humanity find themselves again divided in similar topic these 155 years later. We are a nation still trying to reach for the stars of racial and gender equality while still stuck in the quicksand of bigotry, white supremacy and a patriarchal subculture.

Rosa Parks from Montgomery, Alabama initiated equal rights of all people within this United States of America that memorable day when she refused to give up her seat at the back of the bus to a white woman. Standing up for her human rights landed her in jail that night, but showed all people that we can peacefully say no to injustice. A boycott of every single black person not using the buses in the city lasted for 381 days ended when the bus segregation was declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court. It took ten years for segregation to be banned in any other state after Rosa Park’s brave “No.”

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who passed away on September 18, 2020, was a graduate of Harvard Law School. She broke through the glass ceiling of gender equality arguing six landmark cases on gender equality before the Supreme Court, followed by becoming the second female Supreme Court Justice in United States history.

Wilma Rudolph is an athlete who not only rose above racial and gender prejudice, but was also victorious over polio, which she contracted as a young girl, leaving her with a paralyzed leg. Her doctor told her she would never walk again, but her mother promised her she would. She not only had weekly doctor appointments, but also had her weak leg massaged by her twenty-one brothers and sisters each day. In order to walk, she wore braces, and endured the taunts of mean-hearted children in her neighborhood. Still, Wilma tried walking without the braces, then started playing basketball, and loved jumping and running. She competed in twenty races, winning every one of them, and broke three world records at the 1960 Olympics, earning her three gold medals. Before her death November 12, 1994, she was among the most highly known black women not only in the United States of America, but also worldwide.

Wilma Rudolph always said that the key to winning was knowing how to lose: “Nobody wins all the time. If you pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday.”

This last inspirational quote by Wilma Rudolph can help The United States of America to heal today. It is not necessary to keep beating the drum of division, hatred for the other side. It is humanly possible to come together for the good of the country.

War is not a communication skill. It is possible to heal this nation without further death through the devastating COVID-19 (SARS Co2) pandemic, loss of life due to inner city violence, and systemic racism sweeping unabated in every state in this United States of America.

Let us again consider the timely points made by President Abraham Lincoln in his March 4, 1986 speech. Then it was called “Reconstruction.” Hopefully today we call it “Common Sense.”

“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 half 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 offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offences 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 offence 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 bondman’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 a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”

President Abraham Lincoln intended to mean that he and his administration would help the South to recover from the disastrous conditions, human and material, in which the war had reduced the same, without any feeling of revenge neither against those who had fought nor against their families.

God Bless Everyone