Greetings Readers!
As a reminder — Every Friday at Noon EST (Join here), Perennial Meditations readers are welcome to gather for Reading & the Good Life. (A space for connection, contemplation, and conversations on the art of living.) This Friday begins an exploration of Existential philosophy with Irrational Man by William Barrett (initially published in 1958).
What does it mean to be human?
Do humans actually have better (and worse) angels of our nature?
On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln’s famous inaugural address ended with the following plea:
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
In 1860, Lincoln was elected the 16th President of the United States of America. Following the election, the South was enraged and responded with plans to leave the Union before he took office in March 1861. Lincoln’s call to the better angels of our nature was an attempt to reach the heart of the country.
The historian and author Doris Kearns explains in Team of Rivals that Lincoln’s political genius revealed his extraordinary ability to form friendships with men who had previously opposed him. To repair injured feelings that, left untended, might have escalated into permanent hostility. By choosing a cabinet of rivals, Lincoln built a team with diverse and opposing views that would be pivotal in healing the country’s divide. It was one of those opposing voices that helped draft the final line of his famous inaugural address.
