What Biden should say in his inaugural address

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. “A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted.” Lincoln knew — and was not afraid to frankly acknowledge — just how precarious that moment in our nation’s history was. In his 1865 inaugural address, Lincoln pointed out that “slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest” in the South and that “all knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war.” Similarly, Joe Biden must not underplay the precarity of this moment, nor shrink away from identifying its root causes. “Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment,” Roosevelt said in 1933, noting that “in every dark hour of our national life, a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.” Twelve years later, as the Second World War raged in Europe and Asia, Roosevelt again called on Americans to rise to the challenge, reminding them the war was “a test of our courage — of our resolve — of our wisdom — our essential democracy.” Similarly, in his 1865 address, Lincoln acknowledged in unflinching terms just what was at stake in the waning days of the Civil War. It is a theme Lincoln built on four years later, speaking these immortal words: “With malice toward none; with charity for all.” Joe Biden should similarly remind the nation that only by going forward together hand-in-hand, not as Democrats and Republicans but as Americans, can we — as Lincoln so eloquently said — “bind up the nation’s wounds” and “achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”