Conversations in Management
Weeks
of rain had left thousands of spectators at the Capitol’s East
Portico standing under a leaden sky and in ankle-deep mud.
They’d come to see and celebrate the beginning of Lincoln’s
second term as President. Despite the chilly day, warm waves of
cheers rippled again and again through the excited crowd as he
slowly rose to deliver his second inaugural address. Suddenly,
as the last cheers subsided, the sun burst through the clouds
and flooded the scene with a golden light. Lincoln was moved by
it. The following day he commented to a reporter, “Did you
notice that sunburst? It made my heart jump.” The weather
provided the perfect accompaniment to his address. The sunlight
was taken a symbol of hope and change—a sign of a new season.
Such hopefulness wasn’t unfounded. At that moment Grant was
pressing Lee hard and the Army of Northern Virginia was only
weeks away from surrender. Lincoln acknowledged as much in his
address, but rather than assuming the jubilant tone of an
exultant victor, he described a moral framework for
reconciliation. It was a simple plan; malice towards none,
charity for all and the firmness to bind the
nation’s wounds through right actions.
Six weeks
later this spirit was manifested as Brig. Gen. Joshua L.
Chamberlain formally accepted the surrender of Lee’s Army.
Rather than have the Confederate soldiers surrender to sounds of
Union cheers, he ordered his regiments to accord full military
honors as a mark of respect toward their fellow countrymen. A
solemn Maj. Gen John B. Gordon, Commander of the Confederate
Second Corps, was the first to surrender. As he approached the
Union lines, he was surprised to hear a drum roll, bugle call
and “order arms” as each blue-suited regiment rendered its
salute. With tremendous dignity, he and his troops returned the
honor. Over the course of that long day, honors were rendered
and reciprocated as over 27,000 Confederate soldiers marched by
in what was described as an atmosphere of awed silence.
It was an
extraordinary moment in our history. The national psyche had
been rubbed raw by a bloody and devastating conflict, yet in a
flash, the mood shifted from revenge to reconciliation.
Those who know their history are aware that it wouldn’t last.
Just two days after Chamberlain accepted the Confederate
surrender, Lincoln was assassinated—with unhappy consequences
for generations of Americans. The clouds of war, it seemed, had
swallowed Lincoln’s sunburst.
It’s been
143 years since Lincoln made his second inaugural address and
much has changed. But the moral framework he laid out for the
nation remains fresh—
malice towards none;
charity for all; firmness in the right.
The framework remains as important for the nation today as it
was then. At a time when our country is united to an extent that
Civil War survivors would have found unimaginable, our public
discourse has become fractious. Nuanced disagreements are
shrilly argued as if they represented polar opposite points of
view. Honest differences of opinion are assigned malevolent
ulterior motives and conspiracy theories abound. Right actions
are easily sacrificed on the altar of expediency. Against this
backdrop, let’s reassert the template for civility that
Lincoln spoke of and that Chamberlain demonstrated. We can start
by accepting differences with respect and in a spirit of
good will. We can empathize with and lend a hand
to the weak, troubled or less fortunate. We can adhere to the
right as we know it and encourage others to do the
same. This may be 19th century thinking, but it can
transform our modern age.
—Ebert
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