Why was Lincoln's second inaugural address important?

Answer 1

Put simply, the address related three ideas:

1. The war was not a controlled action by either side; it had its own identity, independent of the people of the North or South;

2. Slavery was a truly national sin, the responsibility of both North and South. For that reason, the penalty for this sin must be paid by the entire nation (..."and that he (God) gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came...");

3. Despite the fact that "both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God", neither party could claim God's special favor; God's justice would be meted out in His own time, not man's, and it is simply our responsibility to behave as a penitent people, striving "to bind up the nation's wounds" and to achieve "a just and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."

Answer 2

In Lincoln's second inaugural address, he is more forward about his distaste for slavery then he had been as a candidate four years earlier. Lincoln presents the civil war as a divine punishement for the nation's centuries-long history of Slavery. The second inaugual is important because at a time when victory over secessionists in the American Civil War was within days and slavery in all of the U.S. was near an end, Lincoln did not speak of happiness, but of sadness. Some see this speech as a defense of his pragmatic approach to Reconstruction, in which he sought to avoid harsh treatment of the defeated rebels by reminding his listeners of how wrong both sides had been in imagining what lay before them when the war began four years earlier. Lincoln balanced that rejection of triumphalism, however, with recognition of the unmistakable evil of slavery. That is why this speech is so important.