“It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. ‘Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.’
“If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865
Happy Presidents Day to all.
A great speech, no doubt, and essential reading, but not exactly sentiments to make one “happy”. The quotation from Matthew is a concise expression of a tragic understanding of history.
A great speech and a great example of not pandering. In the crowd that day were many wounded veterans and many families whose children had died in the war. They wanted blood and vengeance, and Lincoln gave them “with malice toward none”
I thought a snippet from the First Inaugural is also appropriate to our times:
I’m sorry that I don’t know enough HTML to create the linky, but it’s one page earlier than Jonathon’s link.
The holiday is now Presidents Day (whose bright idea was that?), so we must honor them all, not only Lincoln. Let’s not forget the great words of other presidents, such as George W. Bush, who said, “We do not torture.”
What an astonishing, sobering, even terrifying thought: that the North’s loss of life and wealth was nothing less than divine punishment for the sin of slavery.
Lincoln was not merely our greatest president. He was a saint. A speech like this today would be considered unpatriotic, even un-American.