The President’s Speech

On March 4, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address. Thirty-eight days later he would be dead, felled by an assassin’s bullet.

Although less than 700 words in length, it was a magnificent and charitable speech that has been the subject of several books. It was a speech spoken by a tired and humble man who personally felt the burden of a four-year long war even though he never fired a weapon or witnessed a battle. The personal toll of 600,000 casualties on both sides weighed on him as if he were responsible for them. In a little more than a month, although Lincoln did not know it at the time of his speech, General Lee would surrender at Appomattox, ending the war in the north. But Lincoln knew as he wrote his inaugural address that the South was beaten and the end of the war was only a matter of time.

The Union had been saved. Yet Lincoln’s speech contained no verbal strutting, no uncharitable accusations against the South, no vilification of the vanquished army. To the contrary, the speech said of both North and South,

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…

As he grappled to give an explanation for the war to his inaugural audience, he recalled the role of slavery as its cause (though not the only cause) for the war.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern 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.

While Lincoln considered slavery immoral, he was no abolitionist. The widely misunderstood Emancipation Proclamation, which Lincoln authored, freed no slaves in the border states which were under Union control. Only the slaves residing in the states and counties in rebellion were emancipated, but since the Union Army was not in control of that territory to enforce the Proclamation, no slaves were freed and the edict was largely symbolic.

Normally, the victor in war assumes no responsibility for the war. The loser caused it. What is remarkable about Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address is that it pins the blame for the war on slavery, and to that end, Lincoln believed, the North was as culpable as the South. He argued this point so subtly that it’s often overlooked in his speech.

The North had participated in the slave trade from the founding of this country and only ended its overt practice a few decades before the war. But Northern industrialists created the market demand for Southern cotton (as did abolitionist England), and while the North had discontinued the ownership of slaves, it perpetuated the institution by buying the product of the slave-owning plantations. Thus, Lincoln’ speech harks back to Matthew 18, quoting Jesus verbatim:

“Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.”

The offense came not only from the slave owners but also their enablers – the North. Both should be punished for the woe of slavery and the war was the chastening rod.

If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses 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 offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?

This is lawyerly argumentation. Lincoln, hoping that four years was sufficient atonement for the sin of slavery, pined that the war would end. But he recognized the long history of slavery in this country – dating it 250 years to the time of the Jamestown Settlement – and reinforcing “the divine attributes which believers in a living God always ascribe to Him” by reaffirming David in Psalm 19 that God’s judgment is fair:

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 bondsman'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."

The measure of the man is revealed in the concluding appeal for reconciliation among North and South:

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 lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Lincoln’s Second Inaugural is a truly remarkable speech – introspective, free of vainglory, and devoid of corrosive blame.

Obama’s Second Inaugural last week stands in stark contrast to Lincoln’s, although he has strained mightily to create parallels between himself and the 16^th president since his 2008 election. He arrived in 2009 by train for his first swearing in as Lincoln did for his in 1861. Criticized during the 2008 primaries for his inexperience, Obama noted that Lincoln was inexperienced also. He took his second term oath on the Lincoln bible and asked to deliver the first State of the Union of his second term on Lincoln’s birthday. Aides say that he frequently goes to the Lincoln bedroom to look at the handwritten draft of the Gettysburg Address which hangs on the wall there. In an interview he boasted that he keeps a copy of Team of Rivals – Doris Kearns Goodwin’s best seller on the Lincoln cabinet – in the Oval Office.

But there the diaphanous and cosmetic likenesses end. Unlike Lincoln, people would hardly describe Obama as humble, possessed of a charitable spirit, or given to reconciliation. Lincoln was mercilessly criticized and caricatured in ways that could not be publicized today and shrugged it off. Obama once took to task a columnist for mentioning his Dumbo-like ears. His thin-skinned self-absorption is renowned. More than once he has reminded Republicans “I won.” While Lincoln took the initiative to invite critics to the White House to make their case so he could better understand their point of view, Obama ridicules his critics – often while he is negotiating with them. Obama may have come from the Land of Lincoln, but there the similarity stops.

The 2,100-word text of Obama’s Second Inaugural Address is amply posted on the Internet for those who wish to read it. I have neither the space nor inclination to parse it paragraph by paragraph. But, while it is not a particularly good speech – because its abundant platitudes and clichés are distracting – the speech is noteworthy in revealing how Obama intends to govern (or rule) in his final term.

One cannot read the text of the address without being struck by how often Obama directly and indirectly impugns individualism and by inference glorifies government. Note the frequent references to “together” in this part of his address:

We made ourselves anew, and vowed to move forward together.

Together we determined that a modern economy requires railroads and highways to speed travel and commerce, schools and colleges to train our workers. Together we discovered that a free market only thrives when there are rules to ensure competition and fair play. Together we resolve that a great nation must care for the vulnerable and protect its people from life’s worst hazards and misfortune.

Curiously this follows a reference to the founding documents – the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution – both of which stressed individualism and the latter of which expressly limited the role of government. Rather than partnerships of government and private initiatives which Obama claims built this country, history plainly shows individual and small group achievements engaged in private enterprise largely created it while government is benignly insignificant. The Founders never envisioned American achievements as a duopolistic enterprise between government and private parties.

Obama’s enchantment with government was highlighted in a speech he gave in Roanoke VA last year in which he asserted that nobody could claim credit for their individual achievements because in almost every respect their achievement was made possible by government. The laughable caricature of Julia created by the Obama campaign last year portrays a woman who is dependent on government virtually from cradle to grave – apparently without help from family, friends, church, or society. The hijacking of the US healthcare system, done under the cloak of cost management, was in fact founded on the belief that government can manage a complex enterprise better than free, profit-motivated citizens can – despite the stark contrary examples of the US Postal Service and Amtrak.

Obama continues his collectivistic vision for America:

For we have always understood that when times change, so must we, that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges, that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.

For the American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias. No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future. Or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores.

Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people.

This is Julia on a national scale, a modern-day rehash of Soviet philosophy. “The American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone” … is he kidding? Tell that to Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and countless millions of individuals who didn’t need the government or a village to “meet the demands of today’s world.”

The word “than” is meant to introduce a comparative proof. How is American individualism made impotent because American soldiers couldn’t “have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias?” Nor could they have used fly swatters and nunchucks! What kind of logic is this? That we have to do things collectively – implicitly partnering with, if not directed by, activist government – because soldiers can’t fight with obsolete and inadequate weapons? I would have gotten an “F” in logic class for that kind of reasoning.

And look at the sentence beginning, “No single person can train all the math and science teachers,” etc. What a banal argument. Does he really expect someone to show up and say, “Hi, I’m Bill. I’m here to train all of the math and science teachers.”? The issue isn’t how many people are required, the issue is does government do it, manage it, or participate in it. I say no. Obama says yes.

Asked in 2009 if he believed in American exceptionalism, Obama answered "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." Yet early in his speech he states:

What makes us exceptional, what makes us America is our allegiance to an idea articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago. We hold these truths to be self-evident …

So, it’s hard to know if Obama believes Americans are exceptional or not because he’s such a master of weasel wording. But apparently, Americans aren’t exceptional enough to take care of their own affairs:

For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they’ve never been self-executing. That while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by his people here on earth.

Self-executing? That’s a term I’d expect to find in a user’s manual. I suspect what Obama meant in the context of his government panegyrics is that God gave the gift but not the means to secure our liberty. For that we need more government. Because of …

… the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall …

This is the fallacy of argumentum ad antiquitatem – because something was done in the past we ought to do it today. This comes hard on the heels of having said above that, “For we have always understood that when times change, so must we.” Does this guy ever read his speeches before delivering them?

Nonetheless, appealing to history Obama veers off into the politics of gender, race, and sexual preference. For that he called up images of the Seneca Falls Convention, the Selma civil rights marches, and the Stonewall Inn riots. While the audience undoubtedly knew about the 1965 Selma marches, I doubt that many knew the meaning of Seneca Falls – an 1848 women’s suffrage meeting in the state of New York – or Stonewall, which I had to Google to learn that it was a gay bar in Greenwich Village. In 1969 Stonewall Inn was regularly raided by the police and arrests were made because it was owned by the mafia and had no liquor license and male prostitution was openly for sale. On one occasion a riot broke out during a raid and continued for several days. The raids ended and were outlawed, and marches for Gay Pride Day throughout the nation are held today to celebrate the Stonewall riots.

While I would hardly call people who participated in events in 1965 and 1969 “our forebears” as Obama does, Seneca Falls, Selma, and Stonewall were seminal events in three social movements whose rights are protected in law today. A fact that Obama conveniently failed to mention is that the suppression of these rights in their day were sanctioned by government – not protected by it. So in using these examples as a rationale for more government to protect the liberty of specific groups is nothing more than pandering.

Like most of his speeches, the inaugural was conspicuous for its straw man arguments and false choices. Here is a sampling:

For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.

But we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future.

The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few, or the rule of a mob.

We do not believe that in this country freedom is reserved for the lucky or happiness for the few.

We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war.

… for our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts.

Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote.

We cannot mistake absolutism for principle or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate.

I could comment on each of these non-existent injustices, inequities, and forced choices but you get the point. These circumstances exist only in Obama’s quixotic mind. He is the knight-errant in a world of non-functioning windmills. The psychologist Abraham Maslow said, “If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” In like manner, if you are selling activist government, you see every social ill as inadequate federal intervention.

After the straw man assertion noted above that “the patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob,” neither of which has ever existed, Obama went on to say:

They gave to us a republic, a government of and by and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed.

This is undeniable. It is also undeniable that Obama’s first term is marked with attempts to subvert the “founding creed,” most recently losing an appeals court unanimous decision for unconstitutionally, and therefore illegally, making recess appointments (about which I blogged in January 2012.)  Why should we expect he will “keep safe our founding creed” in his second and final term when the restraint of running for reelection no longer exists? I don’t.

This is germane because, near the end of his speech, he says:

Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time, but it does require us to act in our time.

I absolutely disagree. A good deal of mischief by the Obama administration and administrations going back to Franklin Roosevelt, if not beyond, is due to the unsettled debate about the role of government, especially the federal government.

Obama admits that the Founders “gave to us a republic, a government of and by and for the people.” Yet this very president ignores of, by, and for the people, forcing them to buy government-specified insurance and forcing organizations and businesses to violate their religious beliefs and pay for procedures and medications that are morally repugnant to them. The Founders would be shocked.

The Obama inaugural speech is peppered with references to citizens and citizenship. He doesn’t understand the meaning of those words. Though he off-handedly states that Americans are exceptional, he is on record for impugning American exceptionalism. A republic that has endured for 225 years, albeit in an increasingly eroded form, is exceptional in the history of the world’s governments. Citizenship means something in a 225-year constitutional republic that is different from its meaning in other countries and governments. It is exceptional!

Yet Obama says we can ignore debates about the role of government and that the lack of consensus is not an impediment to moving ahead – an attitude, to paraphrase Admiral Farragut, like “damn the disagreement, full speed ahead!”

With the role of government unsettled, can a government force its citizens to violate their conscience in the name of insurance reform or not? Can it restrict the gun ownership of its citizens or not? Can its agents touch or image its citizens in humiliating ways in the name of airline security or not? Are the President and Congress restrained by the Constitution and the Enumerated Powers of the Bill of Rights or not? May the government mortgage the incomes of unborn generations to avoid taxing the current generation for their expanded benefits or not? May the government divert taxes from paying its bills and into social engineering programs or not?

Many important questions are unanswerable without a consensus on the role of government.

Obama is no Lincoln. If his speech last week said anything, it said that he is committed to replacing “We the People” with “We the Government.”

It will be a long four years.