Comparing Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Trump
A president’s second inaugural address is a message to posterity. Even Trump’s.
“As I stood … in the insane din of that Wallace rally, saw a crowd of eight thousand tormented by a mere few hundred, I realized at last what had not sunk in at Miami’s riot, or Chicago’s. I realized this is a nation that might do anything.” - Garry Wills
Only a handful of Americans will ever deliver a second inaugural address. This is primarily a consequence of that very small number of people who could be and are elected president: forty-five to date.
But it’s also a product of the difficulty of winning re-election. The almost impossibility of governing a fractious, continent-spanning nation for four years, and then convincing the American polity you deserve four more.
And, due at first to the precedent set by Washington’s retirement and now to the 22nd Amendment, every second inaugural address is delivered with the expectation of a forthcoming retirement. (And frequently an expectation of retirement from political life entirely.)
It may be this note of slight melancholy at the presumptive end of a career, or perhaps the implied reflection on years of leading a nation, that places two of these speeches amongst my favorite pieces of American oratory. Lincoln and FDR’s second inaugurals rest easy atop their pedestals alongside King’s “I Have Been to the Mountaintop,” Jesse Jackson’s address at the ‘84 DNC, and Debs’ speech awaiting his sentencing.
Lincoln’s first inaugural address, as historian Eric Foner relates in his book The Fiery Trial, was an appeal to American civic virtue crafted to keep the disintegrating union together. “Lincoln closed with an eloquent call for reconciliation, based on a paragraph suggested by Seward but reworked into a poetic conclusion to an otherwise impersonal speech,” Foner writes.
His second inaugural address was delivered after four years of bloody war. Compared to the first, it was terse and functional. Compared to the Gettysburg Address, it lacked odes to eternal values. Garry Wills believes (and I’m inclined to agree) that “it was precisely because he saw the staggering size of the problems that had to be addressed that he was setting a mood of pragmatic accommodation to each challenge as it came up.”
In the conclusion to his second inaugural address—likely the speech he was most proud of penning—Lincoln resigned the country to God’s will and dedicated the nation to a future mission of healing and peace he would not live to see through.
“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.’
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.”
Last night, on the eve of Donald Trump’s second inauguration and in a contemplative mood, I opened up my vinyl record set of Franklin Roosevelt’s speeches. (Infer from my owning a boxset of FDR speeches what you will.)
On the stump in ‘36, Roosevelt bellowed that the forces of organized money “are united in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred!” But that sentiment didn’t make it into his inaugural address. That division between populist and statesman emblematic of true civic virtue yet remained.
Riding a tremendous landslide into a second term, Roosevelt, like Lincoln, still struck a humble note:
“Today we reconsecrate our country to long-cherished ideals in a suddenly changed civilization. In every land there are always at work forces that drive men apart and forces that draw men together. In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up, or else we all go down, as one people.
To maintain a democracy of effort requires a vast amount of patience in dealing with differing methods, a vast amount of humility. But out of the confusion of many voices rises an understanding of dominant public need. Then political leadership can voice common ideals, and aid in their realization.”
When compared to two of the greatest speeches ever drafted and delivered on American soil, Trump’s second inaugural address proved somewhat lackluster. Completely ignoring the buffet of lies and half-truths, his promise to stop the social engineering of “gender” by directing the executive branch to enforce traditional gender roles, and his warmongering over the Panama Canal, Trump’s address revealed a man still as unfit to occupy the White House as he was on that escalator.
The national vibes may suggest otherwise but his re-election was decidedly less sweeping than Lincoln or Roosevelt’s—barely one percent of the popular vote paired with a modest electoral college victory.
Yet neither Lincoln nor Roosevelt bragged about their re-election in their second inaugurals. Indeed, Lincoln opened his remarks with the muted statement that “there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first.” Today Trump made sure to point to his “powerful win in all seven swing states, and the popular vote we won by millions of people.”
Lincoln and Roosevelt both beseeched the divine for guidance as they prepared to face the forthcoming trials of governing. Trump declared before the nation that he “was saved by God to make America great again.”
Where Lincoln and Roosevelt made powerful paeans to the sacrifice of the American people, Trump said he personally exemplifies the American dream. (Roosevelt almost exclusively used plural pronouns when describing his first term and plans for a second. Lincoln used first person only for a single sentence.)
In Federalist No. 68, Hamilton made the following argument: “Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States.”
Ha. To quote the selected epigraph, I hope the world has finally “realized this is a nation that might do anything.” To quote scripture, “forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
Here are some articles I’ve enjoyed lately:
digressionsimpressions on Machiavelli and Althusser for his Substack
Matt McManus’ review of We Have Never Been Woke for The UnPopulist
Adam Gurri on resisting Trumpism for Liberal Currents
And Jamelle Bouie on Trump’s McKinley obsession for the New York Times
A couple things I’ve written:
An update on the state of the Laken Riley Act
A synopsis of an Alabama cryptocurrency commission meeting
And a piece about Biden’s statement on the Equal Rights Amendment
Plus a good book I read recently:
Kenneth M. Stampp’s The Era of Reconstruction: 1865-1877