Abraham Lincoln — US President 1861 - 1865
"When I left Springfield [to become President] I asked the people to pray for me. I was not a Christian. When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ."[19]
From
His First Inaugural Address 1861:
"Intelligence,
patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance, are still competent to adjust,
in the best way, all our present difficulty"[7]
From
the Emancipation Proclamation 1862:
"I
believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from
the Savior [Jesus] of the world is communicated to us through this book."[7]
From
His 1863 National Fast Day Proclamation:
"...
we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us
in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined,
in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by
some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success,
we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving
grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us."[32]
"The only assurance of our nation's safety is to lay our foundation in morality and religion."[7]
From
His Second Inaugural Address 1865:
"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 bond-man's two hundred and fifty
years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every 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.'
"With malice toward none; 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." Immediately
afterwards, Lincoln kissed the Bible, bowed, and retired from the platform.[7]