The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Complete Contents / Dresden Edition—Twelve Volumes

by Robert Green Ingersoll

THE RELIGIOUS BELIEF OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

New York, May 28, 1896.

MY DEAR MR. SEIP: I have carefully read your article on the religious belief of Abraham Lincoln, and in accordance with your request I will not only give you my opinion of the evidence upon which you rely, as set out in your article, but my belief as to the religious opinions of Mr. Lincoln, and the facts on which my belief rests.

You speak of a controversy between myself and General Collis upon this subject. A few years ago I delivered a lecture on Mr. Lincoln, in this city, and in that lecture said that Lincoln, so far as his religious opinions were concerned, substantially agreed with Franklin, Jefferson, Paine and Voltaire. Thereupon General Collis wrote me a note contradicting what I had said and asserting that "Lincoln invoked the power of Almighty God, not the Deist God, but the God whom he worshiped under the forms of the Christian church of which he was a member." To this I replied saying that Voltaire and Paine both believed in God, and that Lincoln was never a member of any Christian church.

General Collis wrote another letter to which, I think, I made no reply, for the reason that the General had demonstrated that he knew nothing whatever on the subject. It was evident that he had never read the life of Lincoln, because if he had, he would not have said that he was a member of a church. It was also evident that he knew nothing about the religious opinions of Franklin, Voltaire or Paine, or he would have known that they were believers in the existence of a Supreme Being. It did not seem to me that his letter was worthy of a reply.

Now as to your article: I find in what you have written very little that is new. I do not remember ever to have seen anything about the statement of the daughter of the Rev. Mr. Gurley in regard to Lincoln's letters. The daughter, however, does not pretend to know the contents of the letters and says that they were destroyed by fire; consequently these letters, so far as this question is concerned, are of no possible importance. The only thing in your article tending to show that Lincoln was a Christian is the following: "I think I can say with sincerity that I hope I am a Christian. I had lived until my Willie died without fully realizing these things. That blow overwhelmed me. It showed me my weakness as I had never felt it before, and I think I can safely say that I know something of a change of heart, and I will further add that it has been my intention for some time, at a suitable opportunity, to make a public religious profession."

Now, if you had given the name of the person to whom this was said, and if that person had told you that Lincoln did utter these words, then the evidence would have been good; but you are forced to say that this was said to an eminent Christian lady. You do not give this lady's name. I take it for granted that her name is unknown, and that the name of the person to whom she told the story is also unknown, and that the name of the man who gave the story to the world is unknown. This falsehood, according to your own showing, is an orphan, a lonely lie without father or mother. Such testimony cannot be accepted. It is not even good hearsay.

In the next point you make, you also bring forward the remarks claimed to have been made by Mr. Lincoln when some colored people of Baltimore presented him with a Bible. You say that he said that the Bible was God's best gift to man, and but for the Bible we could not know right from wrong. It is impossible that Lincoln should have uttered these words. He certainly would not have said to some colored people that the book that instituted human slavery was God's best gift to man; neither could he have said that but for this book we could not know right from wrong. If he said these things he was temporarily insane. Mr. Lincoln was familiar with the lives of Socrates, Epictetus, Epicurus, Zeno, Confucius, Zoroaster and Buddha, not one of whom ever heard of the Bible. Certainly these men knew right from wrong. In my judgment they would compare favorably with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David and the Jews that crucified Christ. These pretended remarks must be thrown away; they could have been uttered only by an ignorant and thoughtless zealot, not by a sensible, thoughtful man. Neither can we rely on any new evidence given by the Rev. Mr. Gurley. If Mr. Gurley at any time claimed that Lincoln was a Christian, such claim was born of an afterthought. Mr. Gurley preached a funeral sermon over the body of Lincoln at the White House, and in that sermon he did not claim that Mr. Lincoln was in any sense a Christian. He said nothing about Christ. So, the testimony of the Rev. Mr. Sunderland amounts to nothing. Lincoln did not tell him that he was a Christian or that he believed in Christ. Not one of the ministers that claim that Lincoln was a Christian, not one, testifies that Lincoln so said in his hearing. So, the lives that have been written of Lincoln by Holland and Arnold are of no possible authority. Holland knew nothing about Lincoln; he relied on gossip, and was exceedingly anxious to make Lincoln a Christian so that his Life would sell. As a matter of fact, Mr. Arnold knew little of Lincoln, and knew no more of his religious opinions than he seems to have known about the opinions of Washington.