14 - "With Malice Toward None" - Lincoln's Greatest Speech

About this episode: 
The Associated Press reported the address would be brief. The day of the speech, Saturday, March 4th, 1865 dawned with steady rain. Streets oozed with mud. Like a shroud, fog wrapped its gray arms around the city. At 11:40 that morning, the rain suddenly ended. The clouds began to part, and finally, on a wooden platform before the east portico of the Capitol, the 16th president was introduced. He arose from his chair, put on his steel-rimmed eyeglasses, and stepped forward to speak. In his left hand was a copy of his inaugural address. It was his second, and with a nation weary of civil war, with a population hoping for peace, and before an expectant crowd that needed a soothing message, he began. As he did, the sun broke through the clouds . This is the story about what he said; his second inaugural address, and despite what you may think, the one he truly believed was his greatest.