
“We are one people, one family and one glorious nation under God,” President Donald Trump said near the end of his second inaugural address. “So to every parent who dreams for their child, and every child who dreams for their future, I am with you, I will fight for you and I will win for you.”
Those were inspirational words, I thought. But what about the 75 million Americans who didn’t vote for him? Are they also part of that “one family” and that “one glorious nation”? Are they included in those Americans he mentioned who “dream for their future”?
Given the divisive Executive Orders he was about to sign, it’s likely that even a blustery Trump couldn’t take that unity thing too far.
So why did he tease us with such an alluring message?
It’s as if his speechwriter panicked at the last minute and threw in an obligatory, Lincolnian “we are one nation” cliché. Never mind that Trump has no intention of doing much for the 75 million Americans who didn’t vote for him. He’s a dealmaker, after all. Why give back to those who didn’t give him a vote?
One reason, of course, is that he is also their president. That’s how our republic is supposed to work—we don’t believe in the tyranny of the majority.
But when you’re eager to enact your agenda with the power granted by voters, as is true for many presidents, unifying the nation is not your top priority. Indeed you can argue that it’s better to be honest and not even pretend you will do anything for those who didn’t vote for you (save riling them up).
This is why a second inaugural from long ago is so extraordinary. Our country was at its lowest point, torn apart by a civil war that had already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
As the war raged on with his Northern side at a clear advantage, a newly re-elected President Abraham Lincoln stood on March 4, 1865 to deliver his address.
A Trumpian speech might have declared victory and warned the South to surrender…or else.
Lincoln went in another direction. He didn’t rub it in. Despite the ravages of a war between brothers, he found a way to rally his nation.
People like to say that Lincoln was a magician with words. That is true, but words reflect those who speak them. Lincoln’s words that day, as brilliant as they were, reflected a deep, genuine desire to keep his country together and rid it of the scourge of slavery. The fact that a major part of his country did not agree with him hardly discouraged him.
If anything, as the leader of a nation that was unraveling, it was especially important for Lincoln to speak to those very Americans who hadn’t voted for him.
He did so without being evasive or patronizing, confronting the ugly reality of a terrifying, irreconcilable war:
“Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained,” he said. “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.”
He spoke with both sides in mind:
“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.”
He treaded gingerly but honestly on the divisive issue of slavery:
“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.”
He also found a way to introduce God, not to claim a divine mandate but to show what even sworn enemies can have in common:
“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.”
It is his famous ending that people most remember, and why Lincoln’s remarkably succinct Second Inaugural is widely considered the greatest one in our country’s history:
“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.”
Had he added, “We are one people, one family and one glorious nation under God,” I have no doubt that both sides would have believed he meant it.