We’ve fragmented in recent years. We seem tribal, isolated in echo chambers of like-minded opinions. Yet in one-on-one conversations, many Americans are remarkably similar. We help each other when needs arise, we talk when we meet in public, but we argue politics until we can no longer reconcile.
I think that the loss of common regional news sources has increased our tribalism — now we each choose our own media sources and interpretations of events. Ours is a time like in 1865, near the end of a protracted and gruesome Civil War, when President Abraham Lincoln called the American people to exercise “malice toward none and charity for all.”1
Just before the Civil War, Lincoln asserted that the country could not survive divided. He dedicated four years to the presidency and worked to keep the country together, achieving that goal, but at the cost of his own life.
Lincoln worked from an attitude of respect toward those who disagreed, yet he was forceful in his call for the abolition of slavery. The sixteenth president grounded his speeches and government in moral principles, often recognizing the providence of God in leading him.
We need healing today, as when Lincoln called for the nation to finish the work of binding up the nation’s wounds. At the end of his second inaugural address, Lincoln called on Americans to care for the vulnerable, including those in the soon-to-be-defeated southern states. Whatever our political views, it is incumbent on us to help people in need, those in distress, and those less fortunate than we are.
With a certain degree of humility, with a generous recognition of the providence of God in our world, with a commitment to binding up the wounds of those around us, we can achieve a just and lasting peace, as Lincoln wrote.
The political landscape keeps changing. Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, was drunk at his swearing-in as vice president, never attended school, was impeached, and is often thought to be one of the worst presidents in U.S. history.2 In the twenty-first century, politics swing back and forth like a pendulum, inciting arguments and hostile opinions on both sides of the continuum.
But I think most of us live in the middle, able to speak with liberals and conservatives, committed to building a better society despite divided politics, and seeking a just and lasting peace. As Lincoln spoke in his second inaugural address, when we extend malice toward none and charity for all, peace has a chance to emerge within us, our country, and in the world beyond.
- https://www.nps.gov/linc/learn/historyculture/lincoln-second-inaugural.htm ↩︎
- Jon Meacham, And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle (New York: Random House, 2023), 365, 415. ↩︎