Politicians quote Abraham Lincoln a lot. Historians say they don't always do his words justice
as an effort to defeat incumbent President Donald Trump and restore the Republican party’s reputation as the party of Lincoln.
, right after the secession of seven U.S. states that feared he would abolish slavery. “We are not enemies, but friends,” he said on Mar. 4, 1861. “The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Lincoln’s words are often used in the spirit of compromise, though historians say the President was vocally steadfast about his values. He wouldn’t back down on the pledge that won him the 1860 presidential election: prohibiting slavery in new federal territories. The seven states that seceded before Inauguration Day 1861 interpreted that policy position as the first step to abolishing slavery altogether.
In that second inaugural speech, Foner notes, “Lincoln is saying with reconciliation must come accountability and justice, that you can’t just say, ‘let’s forget about the past, let’s forget about our conflicts and move on.’ That wasn’t what he was saying at all.”
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