Abraham Lincoln

Micah 6:8 says, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” When I think of this verse, it’s the 16th President of this nation, Abraham Lincoln that comes to mind. Each July 4th, I spend the evening thinking on our nation’s past and the sovereign hand of God in creating such a Union that has never collapsed.

Even in his first inaugural address, Lincoln knew the problems facing this nation were severe. He said to the crowd, “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect, and defend it'."

Indeed that was his calling from God, to navigate this Union through its darkest hour. Lincoln made it crystal clear what his objective was in a letter to Horace Greeley on August 22, 1862, “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause."

Now, just so you don’t question Mr. Lincoln’s stance on the issue of slavery, he once said, “I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy." In an address at Sanitary Fair, Baltimore, Maryland on April 18, 1864, President Lincoln said, "We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names - liberty and tyranny." Tyranny is exactly what Mr. Lincoln fought. In a letter to Henry L. Pierce written April 6, 1859, Lincoln said, “Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it."

Lincoln led this nation through the Civil War and trusted all things to the sovereignty of God. Upon writing, “Meditations on the Divine Will”, he said, "The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party - and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose."

On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared slaves forever free in this nation. In that same year, November 19, he dedicated the military cemetery at Gettysburg. His words have lived throughout history, “"...that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

He won re-election in 1864 strengthening the Republican party while uniting Northern Democrats and encouraging Southerners to be reunified. His second inaugural speech, March 4, 1865, is inscribed on the wall of the Lincoln Memorial, "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."

On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, President Lincoln became the first US President to be assassinated. He was shot while attending a play at the Ford’s Theater in Washington. This nation then and especially now, owes a debt of gratitude to the man who believed, hoped and endured so that this Union would survive.

"I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal."- Abraham Lincoln1809-1865