“And upon this act, sincerely
believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military
necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor
of Almighty God.” --January 1, 1863
Emancipation Proclamation
The question for
consideration is this: In what way was
Abraham Lincoln driven by his own religious convictions when developing policy
regarding the Civil War and the institution of slavery?
(LOC document - http://archive.org/stream/religiousviewsof01penn#page/n5/mode/2up)
The Religious Views of
Abraham Lincoln are chronicled in a book by Reverend O. H. Pennell who
indicates that there was a strong attempt by various religious groups like
Universalists, agnostics and deists to hijack Lincoln for their own cause.
Lincoln seemed to measure
religion by the inevitability of the progress of ideas and society. I don’t know if Lincoln could have been too
familiar with Darwin’s Origin of the Species because it wasn’t published until
1859 but he certainly seemed to entertain a belief in the idea of the evolutionary
progress of society and this idea most certainly was shattered by a country
divided by war. He may have embraced the
idea that as society matured slavery would eventually fade away but the war
brought that hope of peaceful resolution to an end.
Lincoln was a bit of a
religious skeptic in his younger years.
He did not attend church and he was very secretive about his religious
convictions. He was much influenced by the deism of the
enlightenment. But he seemed to become a
deeply religious man after several political failures, the death of his father
and especially the death of his son, Willie.
After church attendance became a priority to him he began to attend the
Old School Presbyterian Church in the 1850’s.
Mathew B. Brady. Willie
Lincoln, Third Son of President Lincoln . . . , ca. 1862. Facsimile. Prints and
Photographs Division, Library of
Congress (139) Digital ID #
ppmsca-19390
His friend, Frank Carpenter,
recorded that Lincoln shared his conversion experience with an acquaintance and
told her that he began to understand the tenants of Christianity when his son,
Willie, died. “I think I can say with
sincerity that I hope that I am a Christian.
I had lived until my boy, Willie, had died without fully realizing these
things.” (The Religious Views Of Abraham
Lincoln, p. 27)
The words of Lincoln’s widow
also lend credibility to his claim to Christianity , “…from the time of the
death of our little Edward, I believe my husband's heart was directed towards
religion and as time passed on - when Mr. Lincoln became elevated to
Office...then indeed to my knowledge - did his great heart go up daily, hourly,
in prayer to God - for his sustaining power. When too - the overwhelming sorrow
came upon us, our beautiful bright angelic boy, Willie was called away from us,
to his Heavenly Home, with God's chastising hand upon us - he turned his heart
to Christ.” - Mary Todd Lincoln to Rev.
James Smith, June 8, 1870
Lincoln became very sensitive
to the will of a sovereign God. He was
haunted by the idea that Christians from the north and Christians from the
south were praying to the same God for favor.
In his commentary The Will of God
Prevails he wrote, “God cannot be for and against the same thing at the
same time.” (Lincoln’s Emancipation
Proclamation, The End of Slavery in America.
By Allen Guelzo)
Two preachers and two layman
from Chicago met with him carrying a petition for emancipation. He declared to them his right and intention
to declare an Emancipation Proclamation .
But he seemed wearied by such men who often declared their knowledge of
God’s will and he testily declared to them that if God had revealed his will to
them then surely he would reveal his will to him upon whose shoulders this
burden did lay.
Was Lincoln’s motivation for
declaring the Emancipation Proclamation a move to satisfy political expediency
or was it a personal conviction of his that slavery was immoral?
I think it could be safely
argued that in the beginning of the war Lincoln interpreted the conflict as a
contest to preserve the union. In his letter to James Conklin Lincoln wrote, “You
say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for
you; but, no matter. Fight you, then exclusively to save the Union. I issued
the proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving the Union. Whenever you shall
have conquered all resistance to the Union, if I shall urge you to continue
fighting, it will be an apt time, then, for you to declare you will not fight
to free negroes.”
“If they (slaves) stake their
lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive--even the promise
of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept.” – (Letter written to
James Conklin.) Was Lincoln using
freedom as a ‘carrot at the end of the stick’ to lure slaves into fighting to
preserve a union that had thus far failed to free them or did he genuinely
believe slavery was immoral in the eyes of God?
By the end of the war it is
reasonable to believe that Lincoln saw himself being used as an instrument of
God to emancipate the slaves. Lincoln’s
statement to Salmon Chase, Republican Governor of Ohio from 1856-1860,
indicates his reinterpretation of the war, "I made a solemn vow before
God, that if General Lee was driven back from Maryland I would crown the result
by the declaration of freedom to the slaves." (Six Months At The White
House, p. 90, Frank Carpenter)
Although Lincoln was
conflicted about the fact that good Christians were warring against each other
while calling on the same God for favor and grace. His final conclusion to this dilemma is found
in his Second Inaugural Address:
“Both (North and South) read
the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the
other. 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.”
Kevin Probst - Teaches History, Government and Apologetics at the high school level in Columbus Georgia.
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