SOLD Lincoln Prays to God For the War’s Successful End
“I...join with you in your prayers to Heaven for the return of peace and national unity”.
Lincoln’s whole political and moral philosophy was grounded in his judgment that slavery was a great wrong. When pursuing office, he tried to sway public opinion with appeals to a higher morality. Although a religious skeptic in his early years, this deep stress on morality inevitably led Lincoln to consider whether there...
Lincoln’s whole political and moral philosophy was grounded in his judgment that slavery was a great wrong. When pursuing office, he tried to sway public opinion with appeals to a higher morality. Although a religious skeptic in his early years, this deep stress on morality inevitably led Lincoln to consider whether there was a higher power influencing events. By February 11, 1861, when he bade farewell to his fellow citizens of Springfield saying “Without the assistance of the Divine Being who ever attended [Washington], I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail,” Lincoln’s skepticism had evolved into a belief in God.
After becoming president, Lincoln came to equate the survival of the Union with the survival of free institutions, so that the success of the Union cause meant the triumph of morality and freedom for all. He also increasingly felt the presence of a higher power, speaking of it at Gettysburg when he called the United States “this nation, under God.” By his second Inaugural Address on March 4, 1865, Lincoln’s belief had ripened into a perception of God’s hand at work in the Civil War. He said, “The Almighty has His own purposes…If God wills that [this war] 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’…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…” Thus Lincoln, at the end, saw the preservation of the Union and the freeing of the slaves as related and having some higher, mystical purpose.
Lincoln realized from the first that his ability to rally the people of the North to the flag would be a key component to victory. He often appealed to them, and specifically cultivated the support of religious groups who would share his moral conclusions that slavery was wrong and that the Union’s preservation was necessary to guarantee freedom. For example, on October 24, 1863, he told the Baltimore Presbyterian Synod that “amid the greatest difficulties of my Administration, when I could not see any other resort, I would place my whole reliance on God, knowing that all would go well, and that He would decide for the right.” The religious people responded and formed an important core of his support.
Although Lincoln was frank about his beliefs and not hesitant to make appeals based on them, he seemed to reserve his references to God to public statements. Very seldom indeed did he include them in his correspondence. Interestingly, the same avoidance applies both to calls for peace and even to reunification of the nation, all of which are extraordinary rarities. That is why finding a letter on such a topic is a real discovery. A previously unknown letter has now surfaced containing exactly this important content.
Carlton Chase was the first Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire. He wrote Lincoln on November 11, 1864, just after the President’s re-election. “I beg leave to congratulate you on that loud acclaim by which our country in the most recent election has declared its approval of your government. My heart warms with thankfulness to Almighty God for the prospect, which I think I now see, of a restoration of a very distant day of order and tranquility in our land. May the vast multitudes, who, by their votes on Tuesday last, showed their confidence in you, give you more and means to hasten the end of this dire war…”
Lincoln answered in this Letter Signed, Executive Mansion, Washington, Executive Mansion, November 19, 1864. The communication is brief, yet manages to state the Union war goals – peace and union – and Lincoln’s hopes for and reliance on prayer. “I thank you very cordially for your kind congratulations, and join with you in your prayers to Heaven for the return of peace and national unity. Your friend and servant, A. Lincoln.”
We obtained this original Lincoln signed letter, along with Bishop Chase’s retained copy of his letter to the President, directly from the Chase descendants. It does not appear in any collection of Lincoln’s works, and has never before been offered for sale. They are a rare opportunity for the collector or institution that cares about Lincoln’s war aims and religion.
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