Hal Holbrook – Lincoln’s second inaugural address, in honor of his birthday
An evening pause: I last posted a recreation in April 2017. Today, on Lincoln’s birthday, I present a recreation by Hal Holbrook, performed live on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 13, 1966.
As I wrote in 2017, “Listen to the words, however. This is no pandering speech, as we routinely see today. It is hard, muscled, and honest, bluntly recognizing that all, from both sides of the Civil War, must pay for the scourge of slavery.”
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I read that Lincoln had sort of a high-pitched voice like Holbrook , but he could project it to reach a lot of of people. The might have been of history. If Lincoln had lived, could he have stopped the Democrats from instituting Jim Crow? Probably not.
Lincoln began the disaster of warfare by firing cannons on Fort Sumpter. Confederate states did not initiate the warfare.
It is likely that had Lincoln been a couple of generations earlier, he would have actually been one of our founders!
On the other hand, he played right into the hands of the Southern slave-holders, just as Northern politicians continuously used abolition to subsequently enable Jefferson Davis and other political leaders, to fashion the Civil War as a “War of Northern Aggression.” The bloodbath that ensued with its remorseless brutality, carnage, and injustice, is what unfolds when religion trumps Reason!
While Lincoln will always be seen as a great President, he nonetheless “presided” over the greatest tragedy in our history! A tragedy that was made possible because both “opponents” succumbed to the imagined justification that “God” is on our side! As Lincoln so powerfully exemplified.
Yes, the despicable “institutions” of slavery in the South were ended. It was government, however, that sanctioned them in the first place, to which the Federal Government had turned a blind eye since the founding! An example of where politics trumps Reason!
Perhaps with the results of the previous election, Reason may once againg become ascendent? It has been in “retreat” for quite some time………….
Not my expertise but….
It’s a complicated confluence.
When the Constitution was written & ratified, slavery was already banned in New England, Pennsylvania, and in the Northwest Territories.
Founders were well aware of the situation; they were trying to bring about the Union firstly and that involved dealing with some States with “peculiar institutions,” that could be dealt with later, because they inevitably conflicted with the ideals all the States signed up for by creating and joining the Union in the 1st place.
Holbrook I recognized as Father Malone from THE FOG….and his portrayal of Mark Twain.
There is a claymation program on “The Mysterious Stranger” that is mesmerizing.