They called him “Honest Abe.” The appellation comes from a story that when he worked as a store clerk he realized that a customer had been shortchanged and closed the store to walk to the customer’s house to return a few pennies. As he rose in the political world, he was not afraid to speak the truth, even if it would cost him.
Lincoln had a vision of community and a strong belief in the importance of preserving the Union. During the course of the Civil War he suspended the writ of habeas corpus in Maryland to arrest and detain people who supported secession, based on a clause in the Constitution that permitted such in times of war and insurrection.
A man of many contradictions, he signed the Emancipation Proclamation although he did not embrace racial equality and used generals such as Grant and Sherman whose tactics cut into the heart of southern resistance while he spoke of mercy. In some ways he embodied many of our own internal contradictions as we seek to create a more perfect union and community.
Prayer for the Day
Caught between our past hopes and future dreams,
We cry to you, O God, to deliver us from our struggles of soul;
Anxious that we will not be able to restore our world as it once was,
We beseech you, O God, to point the way to a new way to live.
Hold us fast in your arms and bestow on us your wisdom
So we learn the path to justice and mercy.
In the name of him who points to us the way,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
The legitimate object of government is to do for the people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do at all, or can not so well do, for themselves – in their separate and individual capacities.
- Lincoln, Fragment on Government, July 1, 1854
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
- Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address
The Lord works vindication and justice for all who are oppessed.
Psalm 103: 6