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Was Abraham Lincoln Right Or Wrong

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In the beginning of the war, Abraham Lincoln felt as though the purpose of the war was to determine right and wrong and he believed that God couldn’t be on both sides. Both sides had biblical evidence that one was right while the other was wrong, but it wasn’t possible for both sides to be correct. Eventually there would have to be a winner and there would have to be a loser. Lincoln did not want the nation to go to war though, and he certainly did not want the nation to divide. He tried to reason with both the north and the south through the Emancipation and he had wanted to find some sort of compromise as opposed to fighting and he knew that too many lives would be lost in such a war. But all was in vain; there was no compromise to be made and lives were to be lost. …show more content…
After the death of his favorite son Willie, Lincoln’s relationship with God shifted. At his son’s funeral, a minister gave a eulogy that stated “What we need in the hour of trial, and what we should seek by earnest prayer, is confidence in Him who sees the end from the beginning and doeth all things well." He no longer saw God as a cold, distant God, but rather a personal, loving God. At this point, he was comforted by the stories of Job in the Bible. He also wrote in his personal notes that he wanted to please God and wasn’t sure of how to do that. He desperately wanted to free the slaves, but only wanted to do so if it was truly God’s will. He felt that God was trying to prove something to him with the war. He knew that either the North or the South had to be wrong and that God was going to show him which side was truly wrong. He needed a sign before he could make a decision though, and when the North won the battle of Antietam he took that as his sign and decided to end slavery in the South. So, on January 1st of 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation

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