Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of

leadership in the long emergency S 87
Through the next four years, Lincoln continued to frame the
meaning of the Civil War relative to the Constitution, but always
in measured strokes, looking to a horizon that most could not
see. The Emancipation Proclamation was carefully fi tted to the
war situation of 1862, and the nuances of keeping the loyal slave
states neutral proclaimed only a partial emancipation applicable
only to the states in rebellion, drawing the ire of the impatient. At
Gettysburg, Lincoln, in a masterpiece of concise eloquence based
on years of arguing the principle that “if men are created equal,
they cannot be property,” corrected the Constitution, in Garry
Wills’ view, without overthrowing it (Wills, 1992, pp. 120, 147).
The “unfi nished work” he described was that of restoring the
Union and, in effect, taking a country of states to “a new birth of
freedom” as a nation with a government “of the people, by the
people, for the people.”
Lincoln’s second inaugural address is the capstone of his efforts
to frame slavery and the Constitution, and describe a nation dedicated
to the proposition that all men are created equal. The setting
was the fi nal months of the Civil War, with Confederate armies on
the threshold of defeat. Lincoln’s tone is somber, not triumphal.
While both sides in the war prayed to the same God, the prayers
of neither were answered in full. “The Almighty,” Lincoln reminds
the nation, “has His own purposes,” which transcend those of
either side in the war. Drawing from Matthew 7:1, Lincoln cautioned
the victorious not to judge former slaveholders, “that we
be not judged.” He closes by saying, “With malice toward none;
with charity for all . . . let us . . . 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.”
From his earliest statements on slavery to “charity for all,”
Lincoln progressively framed the issues of slavery in ways that left
no doubt that he thought it was a great wrong but preservation
of the Constitution was the prior consideration. When war came,