Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural

Ronald C. White Jr.

What did Lincoln mean in his Second Inaugural, and how does the whole short speech work rather than just its famous lines?

At a glance

You will see that Lincoln meant his call for charity to be balanced by firmness in the right
You will understand how Lincoln set a list of human purposes against the purposes of a living God
You will hear how Lincoln's repetition and balance, as in hope and pray or lash and sword, give his prose a poet's ear