It may not feel or seem like it today, but every four years, for well over a hundred years, March 4th was a big day and a big deal here in the United States.

Back in 1789, the Continental Congress codified it as Inauguration Day – a tradition that lasted until 1933 when the 20th Amendment officially moved the day to January 20th. With the presidential election held in November, the March date came in handy since it took longer to compile and relay vote totals and travel far distances in wintry weather.

As time went on and both the speed of communication and the modes of transportation improved, support for shortening the four-month gap between Election and Inauguration days began gathering steam. But politics being politics, it took a long time for the change to be made.

In fact, Congress began voting on the date change in 1886. Only each time the amendment idea surfaced, it would pass the House but not the Senate or vice versa. There were six serious efforts across fifty years, but it wasn’t until the Great Depression and Franklin Roosevelt’s election in 1932 that it garnered enough votes to finally pass.

Known informally as the “lame duck” resolution, the simple proposal met resistance for a number of reasons, but especially one: free of the risk of electoral backlash, outgoing or “lame duck” members of Congress were known to pass a lot of controversial legislation between November and March. So much for principled courage. The losing party was also not super excited at the prospect of the winning party’s president and members of Congress assuming office in just over two months rather than four.

As a result, there have been 32 presidents inaugurated on March 4th and just twelve on January 20th, making the 63rd day of the year an historically significant one in America. But of all those special days, March 4, 1865 is the Inaugural perhaps most remembered and revered.

Nobody knew it at the time, but 56-year-old President Abraham Lincoln had just 41 days left to live when he took the oath for the second time. It was a cold, windy and wet Saturday in Washington, D.C. Mud was everywhere, literally and metaphorically. The Confederacy was on the ropes. A hard-fought Union victory seemed likely, but when was an open question.

Known for his poignancy and brevity, Lincoln’s speech was just 700 words. He spoke for a little over six minutes. The first half was looking back, but it’s the reflective second half when he looked forward that’s so often quoted. It’s also the portion which remains timeless, instructive, and both inspirational and aspirational, especially in a highly divided America.

Rather than celebratory, President Lincoln was sober, delivering more sermon than stump speech, suggesting the fault for slavery and its sins wasn’t just a burden of one side:

“He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came,” the president stated. He then added, “Shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?”

“He” was God – and Lincoln was suggesting the war’s woes were something of a divine judgement. Possessing a deeply Christian worldview, the president understood there is no distinction between the secular and spiritual. It is all intertwined. Lincoln was also assuring that God’s judgement didn’t diminish His goodness.

Foolish policies of certain parties and people magnify and multiply troubles, but the humility with which Lincoln was leading allowed the nation to reunite after the bitter war. Rather than blaming, he was harkening back to his first Inaugural and appealing to “our better angels.”

The president concluded with his most elegant of charges:  

“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.”

The magnanimity expressed in those words was more than a balm on a burn – it was transformative. Lincoln didn’t live to see its full fruition, but in this volatile and contentious age, we would be wise to emulate his sage advice and grand example.

Paul J. Batura is a local writer and founder of the 4:8 Media Network. He can be reached via email Paul@PaulBatura.com or on X @PaulBatura.