Abraham Lincoln Knew Violence Must Be Addressed at the Root
Abraham Lincoln is often invoked in calls for civility and reconciliation across the partisan divide. But Lincoln himself understood that such reconciliation was impossible in his own time until justice had been served and slavery abolished.
What made Abraham Lincoln great was that he understood that, in the end, there would be no establishment of the rule of law until justice had been served and slavery abolished. (Ed Vebell / Getty Images)
I understand the impulse, at moments like these, for politicians and public spokespersons to say that we need to talk across the divide, to acknowledge our similarities amid our differences, that we need leaders who understand there is no red America, no blue America, just America. It’s not my way of writing or speaking, but it runs deep in our political tradition. So it’s not surprising that people would turn to it.
Looking for precedents, people will often invoke Abraham Lincoln, particularly his first and second inaugural addresses (or least the conciliatory part of the second). The leader who bound up our wounds, who bore malice toward none and charity for all.
But Lincoln is an instructive case for a different reason. And that is that despite starting his career issuing bromides for peace and reconciliation, he came to understand, as time went on, a rather different alliance between words and deeds, toleration and power, reconciliation and reality.
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