Read Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address (linked in the “Response Essay” section of this module) and write a response to the following question. -In Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, Lincoln claims of the North and the South: “Both 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.” Why do you think that those in the North and the South could be said to be reading the same Bible and asking God to aid them, though they are taking different sides on the morality of the institution of slavery? Perhaps more specifically, what do you make of people who called themselves Christians, yet support blatant evil, such as the institutional slavery in the United States? (Note: It’s tough to generalize here, as there is quite a variation–some people clearly were not Christians, while some influential Christians of the preceding century, such as Jonathan Edwards, participated in owning slaves.)
