Note to Thurlow Weed

MARCH 15, 1865

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON

DEAR MR. WEED:

Every one likes a compliment. Thank you for yours on my little notification speech and on the recent inaugural address. I expect the latter to wear as well as--perhaps better than--anything I have produced; but I believe it is not immediately popular. Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them. To deny it, however, in this case, is to deny that there is a God governing the world. It is a truth which I thought needed to be told, and, as whatever of humiliation there is in it falls most directly on myself, I thought others might afford for me to tell it.

Truly yours,

A. Lincoln

source: Moldenhawer, Rev. J. V. "The Lincoln of the Second Inaugural," The Abraham Lincoln Association Papers, 1939, Springfield, IL: Abraham Lincoln Association, 1940, p. 83.

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...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 it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

- Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865