Lincoln's God

Lincoln’s God

Mark Tooley on May 2, 2023

Here’s my interview with journalist Joshua Zeitz about his new book Lincoln’s God: How Faith Transformed a President and a Nation. His book reviews how strong evangelical Protestantism influenced American public opinion, the anti-slavery movement, the Civil War and the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. It’s a fascinating story.

  1. Comment by David on May 3, 2023 at 12:37 pm

    I inherited 100+ letters written to my great-grandfather by his older brothers who were in a New Jersey regiment during the Civil War. The collection was nice as it covered nearly the whole period of the war. It has since been donated to the State Library.

    I was somewhat shocked by one written just after the Emancipation Proclamation. The writer was disgusted that Lincoln had changed the war from one of preserving the Union to one of the abolition of slavery and raising slaves to the level of the white man. He mentioned “everyone” felt the same way and hoped no other Republican would ever again occupy the Presidential chair. Of course, that was just one person’s view.

    There are frequent differences between what politicians believe and what they say in public. We may never know exactly what Lincoln thought.

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