Lincoln spoke to both sides without shying away from making distinctions or abandoning his own commitments. He blamed the South for pushing the nation to war, especially over slavery: “It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces.” But in that critique, Lincoln urged humility. “Let us judge not, that we be not judged,” he asserted, echoing the Gospel of Matthew. Balancing his criticism, he argued that the horrible bloodshed of the war was a judgment on the North too.
Given these truths, Lincoln closed by calling his hearers to steady service: “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.” The most important of these tasks was “to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan.” In this invitation, Lincoln was calling to mind the Good Samaritan of Luke 10, who, finding an injured man, “bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine.” Similarly, Lincoln echoed the book of James, which teaches the duty of visiting “the fatherless and widows in their affliction.” Lincoln concluded this humanitarian vision could cross borders and ethnic divisions, providing an example to the world.
In the present moment, a desire to “bind up” must be a precondition for resetting some of the fractures the nation is experiencing today. Americans should look to Lincoln’s words as an enduring call to reconciliation.