Stipanowich on Malice Toward None; Charity For All: Lincoln's Vision of Reconciliation For All Americans @PeppLaw

Thomas Stipanowich, Pepperdine University School of Law, has published Malice Toward None; Charity for All: Lincoln’s Vision of Reconciliation for All Americans as Pepperdine University Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2024/19. Here is the abstract.

The towering rhetoric of Lincoln’s second inaugural address, delivered in the final months of our country’s bloodiest conflict, framed a vision of the future focused on mutual healing and understanding. However, the achievement of Lincoln’s vision was complicated by the centuries-old common heritage that had divided the nation: Black slavery. Due in large part to Lincoln’s leadership, millions of enslaved Black Americans were now free, and Lincoln’s vision of reconciliation included them all. The premise of this article is that in the course of piloting the ship of state through treacherous waters, Lincoln balanced and juggled a trio of priorities--restoration of the Union, limiting Black slavery, and reconciling his fellow Americans—priorities that, depending on the circumstances, might be mutually reinforcing or in tension. Although Lincoln had long believed that slavery was a great moral wrong, it was not until the second year of his presidency that he decided that in order to restore the integrity of the Union he had to proclaim the emancipation of slaves in the Southern Confederacy—a decision driven by moral as well as pragmatic considerations, and paralleled by his own spiritual journey. The Emancipation Proclamation transformed the character of the Civil War, altering the playing field and dramatically raising the stakes for the slaveholding interests and causing many in the South to see Lincoln as the symbol of an oppressive North, a tyrant who by freeing Black slaves was effectively enslaving Southern whites. Yet throughout the war, paradoxically, Lincoln harbored hopes of promoting reconciliation. For Lincoln, this ultimately meant acknowledging the truth that slavery was the tragic joint inheritance of Americans North and South and that justice demanded its abolition whatever the cost; with this goal accomplished, the way could be open for all Americans to extend mercy to one another and live in peace. Lincoln understood that these goals might not be achieved in his lifetime, but strove mightily nonetheless. The same challenge remains for us today.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.