With Malice Towards None

Reflecting on Lincoln in these trying times.

A nation on the brink of a brutal civil war. An election won without a single electoral vote from the southern half of the nation. Brother poised to fight brother, cousin to fight cousin, and countrymen to ravage each other. Needless to say, the victor of the 1860 presidential election, Abraham Lincoln, inherited a nation divided as bitterly as any nation could be divided. Shortly after Lincoln took office the first shots were fired on fort Sumpter launching the deadliest war in our history, American vs American. 

After four years of warfare, hundreds of thousands of American lives (North and South) destroyed, and a nation tired and depressed,  Lincoln addresses the nation for his second Inaugural address. Did he merely berate the southern rebels who at that very moment were still waging a war for the destruction of the Union? He did not. Lincoln talked in clear moral terms about how the sins of both north and south, in the toleration of the slave trade led a righteous God to exact a gruesome but just judgement on our people, and implicitly urged national repentance. 

“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…. 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 man should dare to ask 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….

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.” 

It would have been easier for the beleaguered 16th President to lash out in rage at the rebels who launched this God awful war of death and national destruction, but as a testament to his wisdom he was willing to recognize that the sin of slavery was a shared national sin, and some blame rested on both parties. He ended that speech with his now immortal words, “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.”

As I write these words America is on the cusp of the 2024 presidential election, and many Americans feel like our current levels of polarization are fundamentally unsustainable. Partisans for both Trump and Harris speak openly of civil war, national divorce, and the end of American democracy should their candidate lose. While we are indeed polarized, I do not believe our divisions come close to the divisions America’s 16th President had to navigate. But unlike then, America lacks the caliber of leader at the top to calm our national soul and appeal to the better angels of our nature. On the left, the current outgoing President Joe Biden has referred to Trump supporters as “Garbage” and routinely dismissed “MAGA Republicans” as dangerous threats to democracy. And of course on the right, former President Donald Trump has on many occasions spoken of “the enemy within” and referenced many different groups within our country as domestic adversaries. Kamala Harris, seems poised to follow the Biden track. 

Intransient Never Trump Republicans and conservatives, Centrists Democrats, and progressives all seem united in their insistence that the political dysfunction of our populist moment lies fully at the feet of Donald Trump and his political enablers and voters. Populist Republicans and Donald Trump himself think that our political dysfunction lies solely at the feet of the nebulous uni-party political establishment, radical left Democrats, and “and warmongers” and neither side seems willing to follow Lincoln’s example of looking for their own culpability in our national political problems. In reality, Trumpian populism arose in the context of a political establishment which was not adequately addressing the concerns of millions of Americans. And also Trump, like any populist demagogue has turned legitimate grievances into a politics of resentment for many millions of Americans. Also a radical left cultural contingent has pushed the bounds of American culture for decades, while disregarding the religious liberty and convictions of Americans who disagreed with them. And many social conservatives, in turn, responded to left wing cultural pushes by automatically assuming the worst motives. Acknowledging ALL of these contributions to our political morass, is the first step toward national unity. 

Regardless of the outcome of this week’s election it is increasingly clear that we cannot look to Washington for the moral leadership necessary to heal our wounded and politically worn out nation. Both sides of the ever darkening culture war will continue to flame the fires of division, that while harming our national political life, keep petty politicians in power. But I do not for a second believe that we are doomed to the fate of bad leaders. As an American people we can choose to follow the example of our 16th President over that of our 45th, 46th, and 47th presidents. And we can start before the next President takes the oath of office in January. 

So after you do your civic duty and vote on Tuesday, reach out to your family and friends who you know are voting differently than you and let them know that you still love them and cherish them. Make a commitment to host a Bible study in your home over the course of 2025, volunteer at your local crisis pregnancy center, donate blood to the Red Cross, and drop off some food to your local food bank to make sure everyone in your town has a nice Christmas meal. If we choose to view our fellow citizens as our American brothers and sisters we can begin to turn down the temperature on our political divides and maybe in four years our presidential candidates will take their cues from We The People. 

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’ Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

- Matthew 22:32-40

Joey Carrion is a political science student at Andrews University, studying pre-law as well as psychology. He co-hosts the Gio and Joey podcast. @adventistcowboy