The public mood is discontent if not utterly disconsolate; people feel worn down, dog-eared, and many just down. Why? Because we are teaching each other to doubt, cancel, condemn, trade cross-accusations. We have lost “with malice toward none.”
Think about it. Is this what Americans do? Are we the sort – taught by our distinguished history, parents, grandparents, and faiths – to give up on each other, forgive only when it is easy, and withhold and scold when things get really hard?
Have we forgotten we are genuinely different, trained to go the extra mile, expect more of ourselves, help our neighbors, listen, think, and act on heart? Apparently.
Have we ditched the big ideas and ideals; all we have in common? If we have lost faith, how do we get it back? How do we resolve not to let malice contort and consume us? With accountability fraying, the lure of division high, what can be done?
Interestingly, that is not a new question, nor one without an answer. At some point, we all face the choice, say “I can do better, work harder, forgive, help make things work,” or “I give up, do not care, throwing in the towel, greenlighting malice.”
We all feel angry at things not going right, disappointed in others, sometimes in ourselves. But defaulting to “us and them,” defining others as irretrievable, not worth conversation or contemplation is not our best look, nor best “end state.”
We can do better. Truth is, we have been here before, seen this before. As a people, we know sliding into the pit is easy, but climbing out is harder. We have the power to shake the mood. By doing so, we always see things clearer: Malice is the enemy.
Do we – as a nation – have problems, accountability issues, and political differences dividing us? Unresolved culture talk? When have we not? So, let’s do the work.
Is there guidance to center and strengthen us? Yes, Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address is a good start, delivered 169 years ago this month. It still resonates …
Now as then, we were at war within. Lincoln appealed to our conscience, faith, and hearts. “Let us judge not, that we be not judged,” he said, echoing Christ in Matthew 7:1, “Judge not, that you be not judged.” With those words, Lincoln opened a curtain, and then spoke these timeless words:
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
Even today, his words echo – or should. WE can bind this nation’s wounds. WE can care. WE can cherish. Or WE can forget it. WE can choose to act “with malice toward none” – to be One – or fray, decay, and lose the chance.
This Nation lives because Lincoln’s words were heard. We need to hear them. A short 49 days, and he was gone. But his spirit – embodied in those words – lives. We thrive when we work toward truth … “with malice toward none.”
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.
