Biden’s Call for Unity Was a Pragmatic Plea, not a Moral Argument

It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric. To lower the temperature. To see each other again. To listen to each other again. To make progress, we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy. We are not enemies. We are Americans. The Bible tells us that to everything there is a season — a time to build, a time to reap, a time to sow. And a time to heal. This is the time to heal in America.
— President-Elect Joe Biden, November 7, 2020

When Abraham Lincoln gave his First Inaugural Address, the nation was, for all intents, already at war. Seven slave states had seceded from the union and proclaimed the social compact dissolved. Eight more were watching and waiting to see what happened with the new president. From the first day of his presidency, Lincoln faced a divided nation where his name had not even been on the ballot in ten states. And yet he had to govern.

His words that day have become a rallying cry in our current polarized age. “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they…