'We must not be enemies': Biden would do well to borrow these lines from Lincoln

National Post, 15 January 2021

The president-elect is preparing for his inaugural address amidst political turmoil and social unrest. What should he say?

“The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained,” said George Washington in 1789, in the first presidential inaugural address.

As President-elect Joe Biden prepares for his inaugural address, what should he say? He begins amid political turmoil and social unrest. The “experiment” of which Washington first spoke as “entrusted” to the American people is sturdy and enduring, but those same people are nevertheless shaken.

Most inaugural addresses are instantly forgettable, even those delivered by masterful orators. Once upon a time, when he first ran for president 33 years ago, Biden was considered capable, on occasion, of stirring oratory. No longer. Time takes its toll, and the times themselves are not conducive to elevated public discourse.

Since Washington, only three inaugural addresses have lodged in the national memory. “Ask not what your country can do for you,” said John F. Kennedy 60 years ago, and a century before that came the truly remarkable inaugurals of Abraham Lincoln.

A credible case can be made that Lincoln’s second inaugural — delivered in 1865 just weeks before his assassination and in the final stages of the Civil War — is the greatest political speech ever made, at least in English.

“Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away,” he said. “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 do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.”

Biden’s speechwriters could do much worse than advising the new president to offer, as Washington did, “my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being … that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the People of the United States, a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes.”

Then he should quote Lincoln and sit down.

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