Fellow Citizens:
A charge having got into circulation in some of the neighborhoods of this District, in substance that I am an open scoffer at Christianity, I have by the advice of some friends concluded to notice the subject in this form. That I am not a member of any Christian Church, is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures; and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general, or of any denomination of Christians in particular. It is true that in early life I was inclined to believe in what I understand is called the “Doctrine of Necessity”—that is, that the human mind is impelled to action, or held in rest by some power, over which the mind itself has no control; and I have sometimes (with one, two or three, but never publicly) tried to maintain this opinion in argument. The habit of arguing thus however, I have, entirely left off for more than five years. And I add here, I have always understood this same opinion to be held by several of the Christian denominations. The foregoing, is the whole truth, briefly stated, in relation to myself, upon this subject. I do not think I could myself, be brought to support a man for office, whom I knew to be an open enemy of, and scoffer at, religion. Leaving the higher matter of eternal consequences, between him and his Maker, I still do not think any man has the right thus to insult the feelings, and injure the morals, of the community in which he may life. If, then, I was guilty of such conduct, I should blame no man who should condemn me for it; but I do blame those, whoever they may be, who falsely put such a charge in circulation against me.
—Handbill Addressed to the Voters of the Seventh Congressional District, July 31, 1846, written in response to charges from his opponent, Peter Cartwright, a well-known Methodist preacher, that Lincoln was an infidel. Lincoln won the election.
I know there is a God, and that He hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that His hand is in it. If He has a place and work for me—and I think He has—I believe I am ready. I am nothing, but Truth is everything. I know I am right, because I know that liberty is right, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is God. I have told them that a house divided against itself cannot stand; and Christ and Reason say the same; and they will find it so.
—Remark to Newton Bateman, 1860, quoted in Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln by F. B. Carpenter
When I first came to the west some forty-four or forty-five years ago, at sundown you had completed a journey of some thirty miles, which you had commenced at sunrise; and you thought you had done well. Now, only six hours have elapsed since I left my home in Illinois, where I was surrounded by a large concourse of my fellow citizens, most all of whom I could recognize; and I find myself far from home, surrounded by the thousands I now see before me, who are strangers to me. Still we are bound together, I trust, in Christianity, civilization and patriotism, and are attached to our country and our whole country. While some of us may differ in political opinions, still we are all united in one feeling for the Union.
—Remarks at railroad station near LaFayette, Indiana a few hours after leaving Springfield for Washington, February 11, 1860, quoted by Jesse W. Weik in The Soul of Abraham Lincoln by William E. Barton
I have felt His hand upon me in great trials and submitted to His guidance, and I trust that as He shall further open the way, I will be ready to walk therein, relying on His help and trusting in His goodness and wisdom.
—Remark to a White House visitor, June 1862, from North American Review by James F. Wilson, December 1896
I have often wished that I was a more devout man than I am. Nevertheless, amid the greatest difficulties of my Administration, when I could not see any other resort, I would place my whole reliance in God, knowing that all would go well, and that He would decide for the right. I thank you, gentlemen, in the name of the religious bodies which you represent, and in the name of the Common Father, for this expression of your respect. I cannot say more.
—Reply to members of the Baltimore Presbyterian Synod who came to pay their respects to Lincoln, October 1863, from Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and The War Years by Carl Sandburg
I have never united myself to any church, because I have found difficulty in giving my assent, without mental reservation, to the long, complicated statements of Christian doctrine which characterize their Articles of Belief and Confessions of Faith. When any church will inscribe over its altar, as its sole qualification for membership, the Savior’s condensed statement of the substance of both Law and Gospel, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself,” that church will I join with all my heart and all my soul.
—Remark to H. C. Deming, quoted in Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln by F. B. Carpenter
Let us diligently apply the means, never doubting that a just God, in His own good time, will give us the rightful result.
—Letter to James C. Conkling, written for a Republican rally in Springfield, Illinois, August 26, 1863
I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.
—Proclamation of Thanksgiving, October 3, 1863
I am profitably engaged in reading the Bible. Take all of this book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man.
—Remark to Joshua F. Speed, 1864, from The Soul of Abraham Lincoln by William E. Barton
It is a momentous thing to be the instrument, under Providence, of the liberation of a race.
—Remark to Colonel McKaye, from Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln by F. B. Carpenter
If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God.
—Letter to Albert Hodges, April 4, 1864
We hoped for a happy termination of this terrible war long before this; but God knows best, and has ruled otherwise. We shall yet acknowledge His wisdom and our own error therein.
—Letter to Eliza P. Gurney, September 4, 1864
In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book.
—Reply to Loyal Colored People of Baltimore upon presentation of a Bible, September 7, 1864
I have been many times driven to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for that day.
—Remark to Noah Brooks, journalist and close friend of Lincoln’s, from Lincoln Observed: The Civil War Dispatches of Noah Brooks, edited by Michael Burlingame
Don’t kneel to me, that is not right. You must kneel to God only, and thank Him for the liberty you will hereafter enjoy.
—Remark to a newly freed slave in Richmond, Virginia, April 1864, from The Every-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln by Francis Fisher Browne
Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them. To deny it, however, in this case, is to deny that there is a God governing the world.
—Letter to Thurlow Weed, March 15, 1865
