Mary Lincoln's presence at Abraham's death-bed

[Eva Elisabeth]

Interesting idea. I assume you mean the presidency - not the law business?

I think he wouldn't have thought about this in terms of "regretting", he would have posed the question differently. Whether with or without God in the "background", Lincoln "believed in predestination, foreordination, that all things were fixed, doomed one way or the other, from which there was no appeal" and that "what is to be will be, and no cares of ours can arrest nor reverse the decree".

Regarding the presidency he described himself as "an accidental instrument, perhaps I should say, of a great cause" and "a humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty".

I think he would have posed such a question like this: "Why is it?" or "Why me?"

I wonder what Mary would have done had she lived nowadays - would she have started a career of her own? And what kind of? She loved politics - would she have taken an office, too? Or would her temper have impeded that?