With Malice Toward None

The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition    

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In this letter to Thurlow Weed, written during the final weeks of the Civil War, Lincoln stated that his Second Inaugural Address would not be “immediately popular,” with its inclusive message and refusal to lay blame. The letter is also a rare declaration of Lincoln’s faith in God. Lincoln seems firm in the belief that the purpose of this protracted war is unknowable. “To deny it . . . is to deny that there is a God governing the world. It is a truth which I thought needed to be told.”

(Transcription)

Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them ...


In this letter to Thurlow Weed, written during the final weeks of the Civil War, Lincoln stated that his Second Inaugural Address would not be immediately popular, with its inclusive message and refusal to lay blame. The letter is also a rare declaration of Lincolns faith in God. Lincoln seems firm in the belief that the purpose of this protracted war is unknowable. To deny it . . . is to deny that there is a God governing the world. It is a truth which I thought needed to be told.