Hi, I'm Bill Crystal. Welcome to Conversations. I'm very pleased to be joined again today by Professor Diana Schauve of Loyal University, Maryland.

We've discussed Frederick Douglas, we've discussed Booker T. Washington, we've discussed Abraham Lincoln's Lyceum speech and Gettysburg address.

And today we're going to discuss the second inaugural, so our own little course in the highlights of American political thought.

And they are really the highlights, aren't they?

They are, and second inaugural is the culmination.

Okay, good. Well, this is putting the pressure on today, but that's okay. Diana has written widely an American political thought, but an excellent book on motosque, focusing on the Persian letters and liberalism.

And so it's real pleasure to have you with me again today, Diana. And let's discuss the second inaugural, which is a little longer than the Gettysburg address, but short enough, I think that we can just go through it textually.

And it's, there's a ton of riches, I think, in this speech when read, when read carefully, so.

Yes, so, so everyone should get their text out.

Right. You can get your text.

Not a lot to come to class if you don't have your text with you.

We'll go, we'll read it maybe, and as well that you should have the text, and certainly when you want to go back to it afterwards and ponder these things more deeply and correct.

Whatever bad interpretations we offer there, Diana offers, then you can, you want to be able to look, to look at the text.

Do you want to set it in any context at all, or it's sort of self explanatory, but.

Yeah, I mean, maybe just to mention that this is the first second inaugural in 32 years since Jackson. So that's that's significant.

At the same time, because there had been a number of second inaugurals in the first seven presidents, five of them served two terms, there was a kind of tradition and expectation about what a second inaugural looks like.

And I think in almost every respect, Lincoln goes against those expectations. So this is a very unusual second inaugural.

Yeah, the more you want to look at it, and I showed you a couple of times before this conversation, the more striking that is, though it's the most famous second inaugural girl.

It's funny when you, when people talk about the second inaugural, would you say, you can just say that and people assume it's Lincoln's.

It's the only one that really has a sort of stands as the second inaugural, which is itself, I suppose, revealing of something.

And so he gives it, and it's, it's the war is ending, but not over just.

Almost over four to five weeks away. So it's pretty clear what the trajectory is, but there will actually be 25,000 more, you know, dead and wounded in those four to five weeks. But yeah, it is wrapping up the outcome, I think, is clear by this point.

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