Both read the same Bible and prayed to the same God, and each invoked His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purpose.
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still must it be said that "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
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 orphans; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
We have made a good beginning here to-day. While extremists may find some fault with our moderation they should recollect that "the battle is not always to the strong nor the race to the swift." In grave emergencies moderation is generally safer than radicalism; and as this struggle is likely to be long and earnest we must not, by our action, repel any who are in sympathy with us, but rather win all that we can to our standard. Our friends who urge an appeal to arms with so much force and eloquence should recollect that the government is arrayed against us and that the numbers are now arrayed against us as well and we should repel friends rather than gain them by anything savoring of revolutionary methods.
As it now stands we must appeal to the sober sense and patriotism of the people. We will make converts day by day; we will grow strong by calmness and moderation; we will grow strong by the violence and injustice of our adversaries. And, unless truth be a mockery and justice a hollow lie, we will be in the majority after a while, and then the revolution which we will accomplish will be none the less radical from being the result of pacific measures. The battle of freedom is to be fought out on principle. Slavery is a violation of eternal right. We have temporized with it from the necessities of our condition; but as sure as God reigns and school children read, that foul lie can never be consecrated into God's hallowed truth!