Today is Abraham Lincoln's 194th Birthday.

I wish to honor him by sharing a few reflections about his Second Inaugural Address, given on March 4th, 1865.

Here is the whole text of this famous, and sublime, speech:

Second Inaugural Address

Abraham Lincoln

March 4, 1865

Fellow Countrymen:

At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention, and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil-war. All dreaded it—all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes 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 purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences 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 offence 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 bond-man’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."

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 orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

As you read these words, our Nation is once again approaching war. Like the Civil War, the coming conflict will be one in which the American Government fights reluctantly. We did not seek the Civil War, and we do not seek the war against Terror and its breeders and suppliers. But when the laws of nature and of nature's God are defied with arms, when life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are threatened by lawless and violent deeds, we will answer the call, and pay, in our blood, the price of our Declaration Principles.

Lincoln points out in this speech how the war came because of an interest in perpetuating and extending an injustice, slavery. He goes on to note that men had expectations of the course and outcome of the struggle that differed from the designs of Providence. He notes that both sides pray to the one Lord of the Universe, and how both suffer.

So it will be with the coming war. Saddam Hussein would extend and perpetuate tyranny and barbarism in the cradle of civilization. He would use the bitter and credulous young men of Al Queda, Hamas, and the other Islamist groups to destroy the people of the Declaration, to diminish the power and light that people shed in this world. We will propose our purposes and frame our expectations as we look ahead to the conflict. But unexpected things will happen. Providence always works greater works than we can foresee with our human seeing. We will pray, but so will our enemies. Both will suffer, but, we trust, as in the case of the war that ended slavery, if we stick to our eternal and righteous principles, the Lord will work wonders through us.

We know, too, that we are not worthy of the unconditioned support of the all-righteous One. We, too, have strayed. The days in which we pray for success of our arms in punishing those abroad who have violated innocence must also be days in which we strive to respect innocent life here at home. If we suffer loss of life and treasure, in the fatherland of the Patriarch Abraham and here, in our fatherland, we must accept these chastisements with patience and reverence. Like Lincoln, we are confident that, in the sacred words, "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

Living in faith now, as did Abraham Lincoln then, of victory in battle, we must seek to emulate his final exhortation to eschew malice, embrace charity, and seek a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.