Lincoln's Christianity by Michael Burkhimer

[My Name Is Kate]

Here are some thoughts that occurred to me in the wee hours of the morning.

I suppose it could be argued that most of us don't really believe in God, or else why do we act the way we do so much of the time? If the Southerners really believed in God and the Bible, how could they justify slavery? If the Northerners really believed in God and the Bible, how could they also believe that certain human beings don't qualify for equal rights and equal opportunity? What about the Golden Rule, which is the essence of Christianity?

While the U.S. Constitution may not have approved of slavery, it did recognize it as a legal institution. So did Lincoln and the Radical Republicans and the people who wrote the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment, have a legal right to free all the slaves? Some borderline southern states did not secede from the Union, yet their slaves were also freed. If the states that did secede were no longer a part of the Union, how could Lincoln have a right to force them back into the Union and take away their slaves? If he thought they had no legal right to withdraw from the Union and had never actually left it, what gave him a legal right to take away their slaves?

What is the primary duty of a president of a country? Isn't it to represent the people of the country and to protect them and their interests? It could be said that Lincoln and the Radical Republicans were the instigators of the Civil War because it was Lincoln's stance against the expansion of slavery into the Territories that caused the Southern states to secede. If he was going to take such a stance, he should have been as absolutely certain as possible how the Southerners would react to it, and he should have had some clue that they wouldn't just roll over and give up. Was it in the best interests of the people of the country to lose 2% of the population in the war and to shatter families all across the country? Even the slaves were not much better off for a very long time after their "freedom". Surely there must have been a better way to end slavery while also preserving the Union and democracy for future generations.