Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address - “With malice toward none; with charity for all”

Lincoln delivers his Second Inaugural Address, one of the most historic photographs of the 19^th century. This famous image shows Lincoln in the act of delivering the address on the east portico of the United States Capitol on March 4, 1865.

Thousands of spectators gathered in the mud around the newly completed Capitol to hear Lincoln speak as the war drew to a close. Walt Whitman watched Lincoln on the way to the Capitol that morning: “He was in his plain two-horse barouche, and looked very much worn and tired; the lines … of vast responsibilities, intricate questions, and demands of life and death, cut deeper than ever upon his dark brown face …” John Wilkes Booth and other assassination conspirators were among those in attendance. Booth later confided to his friend Samuel Knapp Chester, “What an excellent chance I had to kill the president, if I had wished, on inauguration day!” A number of authorities have attempted to identify Booth in the crowd and suggest that he is standing on the balcony overlooking the podium (see, for example, Kunhardt, Twenty Days).

Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address is perhaps the most admired of all his writings. It is inscribed, together with the Gettysburg Address, in the Lincoln Memorial. “Lincoln thought the Second Inaugural to be his greatest speech–even more profound and powerful than the Gettysburg Address” (James McPherson). Lincoln wrote, “I expect the [second inaugural address] to wear as well as–perhaps better than–anything I have produced.” With victory over the Confederacy virtually assured, Lincoln used his Second Inaugural to call for peace and reconciliation for all Americans. Six weeks after delivering the speech, Lincoln was assassinated. His conclusion contains some of the most celebrated lines in American history:

“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 & his orphan–to do all which may achieve and cherish a just & lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.”

Alexander Gardner was the leading photographer in Washington during the war, and he made more portraits of Lincoln than any other photographer. There are eight different “Gardner” views of the inauguration, and in most Lincoln is either seated or his portrait is blurred or otherwise defective. The present photograph, clearly showing Lincoln standing and delivering the address, is by far the best and most widely reproduced image. It would have been impossible for Gardner to take all of the photographs personally, and he routinely engaged other operators to make photographs on his behalf. The photograph is commonly attributed to Gardner (see the Library of Congress among many others), and Ostendorf conservatively states “cameraman unknown, possibly Gardner.”

This important photograph of Lincoln delivering one of his greatest speeches, just weeks before his assassination, is rarely seen in the market.

Ostendorf, Lincoln’s Photographs: A Complete Album, O-108.

$38,000