Abraham Lincoln: Was He a Christian?

by John E. Remsburg

Abraham Lincoln believed in a Supreme Being, but he did not believe in the God of Christians. The God of Christians was to him the most hideous monster that the imagination of man had ever conceived. There were two doctrines taught in connection with this deity which he especially abhorred—the doctrine of endless punishment, and the doctrine of vicarious atonement. That the innocent should suffer for the guilty—that God should permit his sinless son to be put to a cruel death to atone for the sins of wicked men—was to him an act of the most infamous injustice. His whole nature rebelled against the idea. Frederick Douglas narrates an incident which, while it has no direct reference to this theological doctrine, yet tends to disclose his abhorrence of the idea. Mr. Douglas was engaged in recruiting colored troops and visited the President for the purpose of securing from him a pledge that colored soldiers would be allowed the same privileges accorded white soldiers. As the Confederate Government had declared that they would be treated as insurgents, he also urged upon him the necessity of retaliating, if colored prisoners were put to death. But to the latter proposition Lincoln would not listen. Mr. Douglas says:

"I shall never forget the benignant expression of his face, the tearful look of his eye and the quiver of his voice, when he deprecated a resort to retaliatory measures. He said he could not take men out and kill them in cold blood for what was done by others. If he could get hold of the persons who were guilty of killing the colored prisoners in cold blood, the case would be different, but he could not kill the innocent for the guilty" (Reminiscences of Lincoln, pp. 188, 189).

NICOLAY AND HAY'S "LIFE OF LINCOLN."

Of the numerous biographies of Lincoln that have been published, the authors of three, above all others, were specially qualified and possessed the necessary materials for a reliable biography of him—Herndon, Lamon, and Nicolay and Hay.

As Colonel Lamon's "Life" covers but a part of Lincoln's career, and as Mr. Herndon's "Life" deals more with his private life than with his public history, the biography of Lincoln that is likely to be accepted as the standard authority, is the work written by his private secretaries, Col. John G. Nicolay and Col. John Hay, which originally appeared in the Century Magazine. In the chapter on "Lincoln and the Churches," the religious phase of Lincoln's character is presented. In dealing with this question the authors have carefully avoided the rock upon which Lamon's "Life" was wrecked, and at the same time have refrained from repeating the misrepresentations of Holland and Arnold. They do not offend the church by openly declaring that Lincoln was an Infidel; neither do they outrage truth by asserting that he was a Christian. They affirm that during the latter years of his life he recognized a "superior power," but they do not intimate that he recognized Jesus Christ as this power, or any part of it, nor that he accepted the Bible as a special revelation of this power. In the following passage they impliedly deny both his alleged Atheism and his alleged orthodoxy: "We have no purpose of attempting to formulate his creed; we question if he himself ever did so. There have been swift witnesses who, judging from expressions uttered in his callow youth, have called him an Atheist, and others who, with the most laudable intentions, have remembered improbable conversations which they bring forward to prove at once his orthodoxy and their own intimacy with him."

As it is not claimed that Lincoln was an Atheist, especially during the last years of his life, the above can very properly be brought forward in support of the negative of this question. In the last clause it is intended by the authors to administer a sarcastic rebuke to such witnesses as Brooks, Willets and Vinton, as well as deny the truthfulness of their statements.

In regard to Lincoln's youth, the following from Nicolay and Hay's work corroborates Lamon's statements and refutes those of Holland: "We are making no claim of early saintship for him. He was merely a good boy, with sufficient wickedness to prove his humanity.... It is also reported that he sometimes impeded the celerity of harvest operations by making burlesque speeches, or worse than that, comic sermons, from the top of some tempting stump, to the delight of the hired hands and the exasperation of the farmer."

HON. WARREN CHASE.

In 1888, I received a brief letter from Warren Chase pertaining to Lincoln's religious belief. Mr. Chase was acquainted with Lincoln in Washington. His letter has been mislaid, but I recall the principal points in it, which are as follows: 1. Lincoln was not a believer in Christianity; 2. He was much interested in the phenomena of Spiritualism.

HON. A. J. GROVER.