On this date in American history, Abraham Lincoln delivered his 1862 State of the Union address -- to a nation that was literally at war with itself.
As he invariably did, Lincoln rose to the occasion. Speaking 10 weeks after he announced the Emancipation Proclamation -- and less than three weeks after the midterm congressional elections revealed ambivalence among voters for that policy -- Lincoln did not dwell on partisan politics. He reached, as usual, much higher -- and delivered some of the most memorable words of his presidency. "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history," he said. "In giving freedom to the slave, we ensure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best hope of earth."
Eighty years ago today -- and nearly 80 years after Lincoln spoke to his half of a separated nation -- a fateful gozen kaigi (imperial conference) was held in Tokyo where Emperor Hirohito approved military preparations for war with the Unites States. Even as Japanese diplomats in Washington were holding discussions with Secretary of State Cordell Hull, the date of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was set: Dec. 7.
The morning of Dec. 1, 1941, Americans awoke to Eleanor Roosevelt's reassuring "My Day" newspaper column. The first lady revealed that she had started her Christmas shopping and attended Saturday's Army-Navy football game. Not knowing how prescient it would seem a week later, Mrs. Roosevelt also urged Americans to write servicemen stationed during the holidays in far-away places.
After taking a disquieting phone call from Hull, her husband had rushed back to Washington by train from Warm Springs, Ga., barely 24 hours after arriving at his retreat. The first lady, and the White House press corps, learned Franklin Roosevelt was back when Fala, the president's dog, wandered into a room where Eleanor was talking with reporters.
"Ah, the president's home," she remarked. (These details, and thousands more, are to be found in Craig Shirley's riveting book "December 1941: 31 Days That Changed America and Saved the World." It's a volume in my library that I pull off the book shelf each December, along with Charles Dickens' classic Christmas parable.)
On the first day of December, FDR had returned to the nation's capital to try and avoid war in the Pacific. But across the sea, caution had been cast to winds. And as Abraham Lincoln said in the context of an earlier crucible: "Both parties deprecated war, but … the war came."
Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics. Reach him on Twitter @CarlCannon.
