|
Two Presidential addresses to the
country on prior occasions of national crisis, division, and turmoil.
"...On the occasion corresponding
to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending
civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural
address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the
Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it
without war — seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by
negotiation. 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.
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.
Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has
already attained. 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. 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. The Almighty has His own purposes. '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.' 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?
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."
Abraham
Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address
"WHEN four years ago we met to
inaugurate a President, the Republic, single-minded in anxiety, stood in spirit
here. We dedicated ourselves to the fulfillment of a vision—to speed
the time when there would be for all the people that security and peace
essential to the pursuit of happiness. We of the Republic pledged ourselves
to drive from the temple of our ancient faith those who had profaned it; to
end by action, tireless and unafraid, the stagnation and despair of that day.
We did those first things first.
Our covenant with ourselves did not stop there. Instinctively we recognized a
deeper need—the need to find through
government the instrument of our united purpose to solve for the individual
the ever-rising problems of a complex civilization. Repeated attempts at
their solution without the aid of government had left us baffled and
bewildered. For, without that aid, we had been unable to create those moral
controls over the services of science which are necessary to make science a
useful servant instead of a ruthless master of mankind. To do this we knew
that we must find practical controls over blind economic forces and blindly
selfish men.
We of the Republic sensed the truth that democratic government has innate
capacity to protect its people against disasters once considered inevitable,
to solve problems once considered unsolvable. We would not admit that we
could not find a way to master economic epidemics just as, after centuries of
fatalistic suffering, we had found a way to master epidemics of disease. We
refused to leave the problems of our common welfare to be solved by the winds
of chance and the hurricanes of disaster.
In this we Americans were discovering no wholly new truth; we were writing a
new chapter in our book of self-government.
This year marks the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the
Constitutional Convention which made us a nation. At that Convention our
forefathers found the way out of the chaos which followed the Revolutionary
War; they created a strong government with powers of united action sufficient
then and now to solve problems utterly beyond individual or local solution. A
century and a half ago they established the Federal Government in order to
promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to the
American people.
Today we invoke those same powers of government to achieve the same
objectives.
Four years of new experience have not belied our historic instinct. They hold
out the clear hope that government within communities, government within the
separate States, and government of the United States can do the things the
times require, without yielding its democracy. Our tasks in the last four
years did not force democracy to take a holiday.
Nearly all of us recognize that as intricacies of human relationships
increase, so power to govern them also must increase—power to stop
evil; power to do good. The essential democracy of
our Nation and the safety of our people depend not upon the absence of power,
but upon lodging it with those whom the people can change or continue at
stated intervals through an honest and free system of elections. The Constitution
of 1787 did not make our democracy impotent.
In fact, in these last four years, we have made the exercise of all power
more democratic; for we have begun to bring private autocratic powers into
their proper subordination to the public's government. The legend that they
were invincible—above and beyond the processes of a democracy—has
been shattered. They have been challenged and beaten.
Our progress out of the depression is obvious. But that is not all that you
and I mean by the new order of things. Our pledge was not merely to do a
patchwork job with secondhand materials. By using the new materials of social
justice we have undertaken to erect on the old foundations a more enduring
structure for the better use of future generations.
In that purpose we have been helped by achievements of mind and spirit. Old
truths have been relearned; untruths have been unlearned. We have always
known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad
economics. Out of the collapse of a prosperity whose
builders boasted their practicality has come the conviction that in the long
run economic morality pays. We are beginning to wipe out the line that
divides the practical from the ideal; and in so doing we are fashioning an
instrument of unimagined power for the establishment of a morally better
world.
This new understanding undermines the old admiration of worldly success as
such. We are beginning to abandon our tolerance of the abuse of power by
those who betray for profit the elementary decencies of life.
In this process evil things formerly accepted will not be so easily condoned.
Hard-headedness will not so easily excuse hardheartedness. We are moving
toward an era of good feeling. But we realize that there can be no era of
good feeling save among men of good will.
For these reasons I am justified in believing that the greatest change we
have witnessed has been the change in the moral climate of America.
Among men of good will, science and democracy together offer an ever-richer
life and ever-larger satisfaction to the individual. With this change in our
moral climate and our rediscovered ability to improve our economic order, we
have set our feet upon the road of enduring progress.
Shall we pause now and turn our back upon the road that lies ahead? Shall we
call this the promised land? Or, shall we continue on our way? For "each
age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to birth."
Many voices are heard as we face a great decision. Comfort says, "Tarry
a while." Opportunism says, "This is a good spot." Timidity
asks, "How difficult is the road ahead?"
True, we have come far from the days of stagnation and despair. Vitality has
been preserved. Courage and confidence have been restored. Mental and moral
horizons have been extended.
But our present gains were won under the pressure of more than ordinary
circumstances. Advance became imperative under the goad of fear and
suffering. The times were on the side of progress.
To hold to progress today, however, is more difficult. Dulled conscience,
irresponsibility, and ruthless self-interest already reappear. Such symptoms
of prosperity may become portents of disaster! Prosperity already tests the
persistence of our progressive purpose.
Let us ask again: Have we reached the goal of our vision of that fourth day
of March 1933? Have we found our happy valley?
I see a great nation, upon a great continent, blessed with a great wealth of
natural resources. Its hundred and thirty million people are at peace among
themselves; they are making their country a good neighbor among the nations.
I see a United States which can demonstrate that, under democratic methods of
government, national wealth can be translated into a spreading volume of
human comforts hitherto unknown, and the lowest standard of living can be
raised far above the level of mere subsistence.
But here is the challenge to our democracy: In this nation I see tens of
millions of its citizens—a substantial part of its whole
population—who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what
the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life.
I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall
of family disaster hangs over them day by day.
I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under
conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago.
I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better
their lot and the lot of their children.
I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and
by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions.
I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.
It is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in
hope—because the Nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it,
proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every American citizen
the subject of his country's interest and concern; and we will never regard
any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of
our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have
much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
If I know aught of the spirit and purpose of our Nation, we will not listen
to Comfort, Opportunism, and Timidity. We will carry on.
Overwhelmingly, we of the Republic are men and women of good will; men and
women who have more than warm hearts of dedication; men and women who have
cool heads and willing hands of practical purpose as well. They will insist
that every agency of popular government use effective instruments to carry
out their will.
Government is competent when all who compose it work as trustees for the
whole people. It can make constant progress when it keeps abreast of all the
facts. It can obtain justified support and legitimate criticism when the
people receive true information of all that government does.
If I know aught of the will of our people, they will demand that these
conditions of effective government shall be created and maintained. They will
demand a nation uncorrupted by cancers of injustice and, therefore, strong
among the nations in its example of the will to peace.
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.
In taking again the oath of office as President of the United States, I
assume the solemn obligation of leading the American people forward along the
road over which they have chosen to advance.
While this duty rests upon me I shall do my utmost to speak their purpose and
to do their will, seeking Divine guidance to help us each and every one to
give light to them that sit in darkness and to guide our feet into the way of
peace."
Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, Second Inaugural Address
|
|