Remembering Lincoln's farewell address

(Editor's note: With Presidents' Day coming up, Ron Dorr, Professor of Rhetoric and Humanities at Michigan state University's James Madison College, reflects on the text of Abraham Lincoln's farewell speech, which was given Feb. 11, 1861.)

Onehundred fifty years ago this month, Abraham Lincoln gave what I consider hisfinest address. It was morepersonal and moving than even his best letters of condolence. It was as humane and affirming, amidloss, as the celebrated Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural Address. It was a model of leave-taking.

Thespeech was his farewell address, spoken before 1,000 of his friends and fel-low citizens of Springfield, Illinois, on February 11, 1861. Three versions of the speech appearedimmediately. One was probably theclosest to Lincoln’s actual words — published in the Illinois State Journal. Another was published in Harper’sWeekly. The version familiar to uswas dictated to his secretary, John Nicolay, shortly after the train had left,winding its way 1,904 miles to Washington, D. C.

Hereis the revised text: “MyFriends — No one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness atthis parting. To this place, andthe kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passedfrom a young to an old man. Heremy children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever I may return, with a task before megreater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Diving Being, who everattended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him, who can go with me, and remain with you andbe every where for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet bewell. To His care commending you,as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionatefarewell.”

Accordingto a neighbor, the President-elect’s “breast heaved with emotion and he couldscarcely command his feelings sufficiently to commence.” For a man not often given toself-disclosure, Lincoln spoke in first-person singular and in revealingways. In his spoken remarks, thefifth sentence was this: “To you,dear friends, I owe all that I have, all that I am.” In the revised version, however, the second sentence readsthus: “To this place, and thekindness of these people, I owe everything.” The audience has become third-person, not second-person“you.” Already, on the train thathad just pulled out of Springfield, he was emotionally distancing himself fromSpringfield, his friends, and his neighbors. He was already moving from the past — memories of 25 yearsand an emotional parting—into an uncertain future that would call on theresources of God as well as the Springfield he was leaving behind.

Lincoln’swords were characteristically brief, humane, and hopeful. The sentiments of departing are oftendeep and ambiguous. “Parting isall we know of heaven,” Emily Dickinson wrote, “And all we need of hell.” Here the sentiments include deepsadness, gratitude, friendship, devotion, trust, reverence, yet uncertaintyabout the future. The subjectsinclude birth and death, marriage and the family, aging, American history,patriotism, religious faith, prayer, separation, grief, and farewell. Such sentiments and subjects can lendthemselves to hackneyed expression.

Tosuch emotional matter, however, Lincoln has brought a clear mind and rhetorical skill. The expression wasdeeply emotional. In the midst ofa disintegrating Union, Lincoln admitted his own limitations, need for supportfrom the American people, and ultimate reliance on God. All three were a foretaste of what hewould say in his trip to the nation’s capital.

The Farewell Address is also arhetorical gem. The revisedversion contains nine sentences totaling 150 words. Sentences vary. The polished version contains four simple sentences, one compoundsentence, and four complex sentences. It includes three loose sentences, three periodicsentences, and three balanced sentences. Sentence length varies from 6 to 27 words. Modifiers or qualifiers, not the subject, often begin hissentence.

Parallelism — repeating certain partsof speech while changing the words — stands out: verbs (“have lived” and “have passed”), adverbs, adjectives,prepositional phrases, and introducers of a subordinate clause. To such standard parallelism, Lincolnadds antithesis: “Here mychildren have born, and one is buried.” In the last sentence, Lincoln achieves a chiasmus, or invertedparallelism: “To His care [I am]commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me.” Staircase, or step parallelism occursin sentence eight as Lincoln moves outward from himself (“go with me”) to his audience(“remain with you”) and God’s presence everywhere (“be every where for good”).

The movement of the entire piece isthat of increasing breadth and intensity. Lincoln lingers on the past (sentences 2-4), captures the poignancy ofthe present (sentences 1 and 5), and shifts into the future, which was mostpressing on his mind (sentences 6-9). The trinity of time is especially apparent in sentences 5 and 8. Each step of the journey is more andmore significant: present pain,past consolation, present uncertainty, and future reliance on AlmightyGod. Coupled with the recurringparallelism and contrast between past associations and future uncertainties,Lincoln’s expanding vision and trinity of time provide all the coherence neededhere.

Most of this variety, parallelism,and coherence is unobtrusive. Lincoln’s wording does not call attention to itself. Who notices the iambic meter in much ofsentences 1, 3, and 8? Powerfulemotions prevail, restrained, even constrained, by Lincoln’s mind, which hasbalanced thought and feeling.

The Lincoln we know as masterrhetorician as well as president and world statesman was already emerging a daybefore his 52nd birthday.