62.9 F
Thousand Oaks

Civil Warriors: ‘We Can Not Escape History’: 160 Years Ago the Greatest State of the Union Address

One hundred and sixty years ago last month — in the midst of a war some considered already lost — Abraham Lincoln penned what many believe to be the finest “state of the union” address in America’s history.

By the end of 1862, the United States was in the middle of the Civil War, and the country was on the brink of separation. A conflict that started with a call for volunteers to serve 90 days to stop a rebellion had turned into a bloody war that encompassed the entire nation. Guiding America through its most troubling time was President Abraham Lincoln, an Illinois lawyer whose election prompted Southern states to secede from the Union. Through unimaginable personal, moral and political pressure, Abraham Lincoln was able to keep his resolve — and the Union — together.

On December 1, 1862, Lincoln delivered his annual address to Congress in what today would be the State of the Union. As was the custom of the time, Lincoln did not give his address in person; rather, it was written and read aloud in the House of Representatives and the Senate. What followed is thought by many to be the best speech of its kind in our nation’s history. To fully appreciate it, a better understanding of America’s situation in December 1862 is required.

In 1862, the Union war effort was not going well. Soldiers were dying by the thousands. Two of the bloodiest battles in American history were fought: the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee, a Union victory that still produced more than 23,000 casualties. In September, the single bloodiest day in American military history came at the Battle of Antietam — with another nearly 23,000 casualties in just one day of combat.

For Lincoln as Commander in Chief, the losses weighed heavy. In Washington, D.C., thousands of wounded had to be cared for. The administration of the war was Lincoln’s daily preoccupation. The lack of Union progress in the war forced Lincoln to replace General George McClellan as the head of the Union Army, a pattern with generals that was repeated several times before the appointment of Ulysses S. Grant in 1864.

Lincoln also had to grapple with the worst kind of personal suffering. In February, his 11-year-old son Willie became ill, and his symptoms worsened. He contracted typhoid, likely due to poor water quality in Washington, D.C. The Lincolns’ youngest son, 8-year-old Tad, also came down with typhoid and was also quite ill in the White House. Lincoln spent days walking from the Oval Office and matters of the war to his very sick sons’ bedrooms to check on them. Tad survived, but Willie did not. On February 20, 1862, Willie died. The Lincolns had already lost their second son, Edward, to what was believed to be tuberculosis in 1850 at the age of 3.

Abraham Lincoln is reported to have said about Willie’s death, “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth. God has called him home. I know that he is much better off in heaven, but then we loved him so. It is hard, hard to have him die.” The grief was overwhelming. For First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, the death was too much. She never recovered.

Through his anguish, the president continued to attend to the war and the country’s other issues. He was criticized sharply in the press and mercilessly lampooned in Southern newspapers. Lincoln’s cabinet seemed in perpetual disagreement about his wartime decision-making, and other politicians, inside and outside his own party, second-guessed him freely.

For Lincoln, saving the Union was paramount; to do that, the Union had to win the war. But in the North, there was no clear way to address the central issue of the Civil War: slavery. Lincoln had made the moral case for the abolition of slavery – but accomplishing it was another matter.

In 1862, Lincoln waited for a Union victory so he could declare slaves in the Confederacy free. Without a victory, emancipation would look like a desperate political maneuver. Antietam’s indecisive result offered enough opportunity, and on September 22, 1962, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that slaves in Confederate areas still in rebellion within 100 days from that time would be free.

Issuing the Emancipation Proclamation came at a political price. In the November elections of 1862, Lincoln and his Republican Party lost 34 seats in the House of Representatives due mainly to Northerners who did not want to fight to free the slaves. It was also a rejection of Lincoln’s management of the war.

Under these circumstances, Lincoln penned his annual address to Congress, an effort to find a common path forward. It began with a dry list of government expenditures and a foreign policy discussion. Then it went to the central issues of the time – slavery and the war. Lincoln discussed the impracticability of separating the nation into two countries, both for the current states and future states in the Western Territories.

“That portion of the earth’s surface which is owned and inhabited by the people of the United States is well adapted to be the home of one national family,” Lincoln wrote. “Physically speaking, we can not separate. We can not remove our respective sections from each other nor build an impassable wall between them.”

“We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope of earth.”

He then discussed three proposed Constitutional Amendments to be used together with the Emancipation Proclamation. The first was for “compensated emancipation,” a plan to compensate states for emancipating their slaves by 1900 (37 years in the future at the time of the address). Lincoln believed this measure to be “both just and economical.” Second, Lincoln proposed that all free slaves remain free forever, but any previous owner not disloyal to the Union should be compensated. Third, Lincoln believed that freed black slaves should be able to relocate voluntarily throughout the country with funds appropriated by Congress.

Within the context of the three proposed amendments, Lincoln stated plainly the connection between slavery and the war: “Without slavery the rebellion could never have existed; without slavery it could not continue.”

He believed that enshrining these ideas as Constitutional Amendments would give rebelling states an incentive to end the war. “This assurance would end the struggle now and save the Union forever,” he stated.

The closing paragraphs of his Address to Congress on December 1, 1862, are rightly considered a high point of moral and political persuasion:

“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

“Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another or us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.

“We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free – honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just – a way which if followed the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless.”

Lincoln went on to win re-election for a second term in 1864 and led the North to win the war. He lived long enough to witness the passage of the 13th Amendment that officially freed all slaves pass the House of Representatives on January 31, 1865. Just two and a half months later, he was assassinated. The 13th Amendment went to the states for the required three-quarters vote for ratification, and on December 6, 1865, it was ratified by the state of Georgia, making it part of the Constitution. Lincoln’s struggle to win the war and free the slaves was achieved.

“The last best hope of earth” has been used by many others to describe our nation since Lincoln first penned the phrase. Today, 160 years later, it remains an apt description and a recognition that the United States is a special nation whose values and sacrifice have created safety, peace and prosperity for countless millions worldwide.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Related

Latest