Second Inaugural Address

As noted in the Stovepipe Hat Word Search, Mr. Lincoln concluded by March 1865, as the Civil War neared its end, that the war had been a punishment on our nation by God.  Here is a selection from President Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address:

The Almighty has his own purposes.  “Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!”  If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences 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 offence 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 bond-man’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.”