Lincoln's First Inaugural

Taped at the Union League Club on the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's inauguration, Dr David Zarefsky analyzes Lincoln's first inaugural address, and how Lincoln sought to keep the Southern states in the Union. With national unity on the line, Lincoln's speech takes up the issue of slavery and how he urged the South to remain true to the shared values and history of the nation. From start to the memorable ending, "The better angles of our nature," Zarefsky dissects Lincoln's speech which tried but failed to keep Civil War at bay.

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News & Politics

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• Lincoln
• Zarefsky
• Illinois Channel
• Civil War
• Lincoln's inaugural address
• Slavery
• State's rights
• Union
• Southern States
• Union League
• Dred Scott
• Roger Taney

[KayBeeEee1983]

Lincoln was right about the majority of the population of the southern states being against secession, if the slave population is factored in. I think it's safe to assume that every slave was in favor of remaining in the Union because they were less likely to be freed in the Confederacy.

[KayBeeEee1983]

@HessOnChess What strategy? They told everyone that if Lincoln won the presidency, they were going to secede.

[HessOnChess]

@KayBeeEee1983 I would guess that since they knew what the Court would say (I assume the court would have denied them), tipping their hand so clearly would have been a bad strategy.

[KayBeeEee1983]

I have yet to hear a reasonable explanation as to why the southern states didn't take their right of secession argument to the Supreme Court if they were so certain of the constitutionality of secession. Doing so would have given them a stamp of approval from the federal government itself, thus avoiding war. If the Court decided against them, they could say that that was proof that the government had definitely become tyrannical and that even the Supreme Court wasn't acting constitutionally.