Can't find that quote anywhere on line.
What Lincoln did say was he would prevent the war by not freeing any slaves if he could.
Dear central_va,
When I used that phrase I knew I would not get it precisely word-for-word; but I used the word “paraphrase†to indicate that fact, confident that I could convey Lincoln’s sentiment in a paraphrase. I stated that Lincoln uttered the words around the middle of the war.
He actually said them as part of his Second Inaugural Address; not the middle of the war precisely to the day, but I thought it was “close enough for amateurs.”
I will paste below, a large quote from that address, in which Lincoln states that he believes the war was a judgment from God, and that it was a punishment upon both the North and the South; because in their own way, they were both culpable. The quote contains the phrase in question, minus a word or two of mine, but surely as close and accurate to what I expressed yesterday for reasonable individuals to agree as to Lincoln’s meaning, whose words I paste here:
The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?
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 bondsman’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 it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and a truly blessed Christmas. Tommy Tucker