Abraham Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address on Saturday, March 4, 1865, during his second inauguration as President of the United States. At a time when victory over secessionists in the American Civil War was within days and slavery in all of the U.S. was near an end, Lincoln did not speak of happiness, but of sadness. Some see this speech as a defense of his pragmatic approach to Reconstruction, in which he sought to avoid harsh treatment of the defeated rebels by reminding his listeners of how wrong both sides had been in imagining what lay before them when the war began four years earlier. Lincoln balanced that rejection of triumphalism, however, with recognition of the unmistakable evil of slavery. The address is inscribed, along with the Gettysburg Address, in the Lincoln Memorial.
- ⭐ Core Definition: Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address
- Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address in the context of Lincoln Memorial
Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address in the context of Lincoln Memorial
The Lincoln Memorial is a U.S. national memorial honoring Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, located on the western end of the National Mall of Washington, D.C. The memorial is built in a neoclassical style in the form of a classical temple. The memorial's architect was Henry Bacon. In 1920, Daniel Chester French designed the large interior Abraham Lincoln statue, which was carved in marble by the Piccirilli brothers. Jules Guérin painted the interior murals, and the epitaph above the statue was written by Royal Cortissoz. Dedicated on May 30, 1922, it is one of several memorials built to honor an American president. It has been a major tourist attraction since its opening, and over the years, has occasionally been used as a symbolic center focused on race relations and civil rights.
Doric style columns line the temple exterior, and the inscriptions inside include two well-known speeches by Lincoln, the Gettysburg Address, and his second inaugural address. The memorial has been the site of many famous speeches, including Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech delivered on August 28, 1963, during the rally at the end of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
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