Lincoln's Use of the Bible

by S. Trevena Jackson

On July 4, 1842, in writing to his friend Speed of the service he had been in bringing Joshua and Fanny, his sweetheart, together, he said: “I believe God made me one of the instruments of bringing you and Fanny together, which union I have no doubt he had foreordained. Whatever he designs he will do for me yet. ‘Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord’ is my text just now.”

It is stated on good authority that after his election in 1860 he said to Judge Joseph Gillespie: “I have read on my knees the story of Gethsemane, where the Son of God prayed in vain that the cup of bitterness might pass from him. I am in the garden of Gethsemane now, and my cup is running over.”

Lincoln’s reply to a committee of colored people of Baltimore who presented him with a Bible, September 7, 1864, gives his opinion of the Bible: “In regard to this great book I have but to say: It is the best gift God has given to man. All the good Saviour gave to this world was communicated through this book. But for it we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man’s welfare here and hereafter are to be found portrayed in it. To you I return my most sincere thanks for the very elegant copy of the great Book of God which you present.”

At Springfield he addressed the Bible Society and said: “It seems to me that nothing short of infinite wisdom could by any possibility have devised and given to man this excellent and perfect moral code. It is suited to men in all the conditions of life, and inculcates all the duties they owe to their Creator, to themselves, and to their fellow men.”

In J. G. Holland’s Life of Lincoln he gives us the conversation with Mr. Bateman: “Mr. Bateman, I have carefully read the Bible.” Then he drew from his pocket a New Testament: “These men will know that I am for freedom in the territories, freedom everywhere as far as the Constitution and laws will permit, and my opponents are for slavery. They know this, yet, with this book in their hands, in the light of which human bondage cannot live a moment, they are going to vote against me. I know there is a God, and that he hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that his hand is in it. If he has a place for me—and I think he has—I believe I am ready. I am nothing, but truth is everything. I know I am right, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is God.”

In his Lyceum speech he speaks of the advantage of an education and being able to read the history of his own and other countries, by which we may appreciate the value of our free institutions, to say nothing of the advantages and satisfaction to be derived from all being able to read for themselves the Scriptures and other works both of a religious and moral nature. In this same speech he uses this language: “If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher.” Then, speaking of the Revolution, he desired the history of it to “be read and recounted as long as the Bible shall be read.”

The night before the President left Springfield for the White House a friend from Chicago sent him the American flag with these words: “Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee.”

It has been said by those who pride themselves on having no faith in the inspiration of the Scriptures that Lincoln held their views. But he addressed conventions and Sunday-schools, and the Bible was as often quoted by him as Blackstone. The addresses and letters of Lincoln are saturated with expressions from the Holy Scriptures. In his reply to Douglas he gave his speech great force by the words of Christ: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” In writing to Mr. W. Durley he uses scriptural terms: “By the fruit the tree is to be known. An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit.”

Ann Rutledge gave him a new view of the Bible and Shakespeare. Abraham Lincoln’s is the language of the Bible. He never used the Bible in an irreverent way. In the Lincoln Museum, Washington, there is a copy of the Holy Scriptures. It is well worn, and shows the signs of good use. Inside the cover are these words in his own handwriting: “A. Lincoln, his own book.”

He wrote a letter to Rev. J. M. Peck in 1848 asking him, “Is the precept, ‘Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them,’ obsolete, of no force, of no application?” In his description of Niagara he said: “It calls up the indefinite past when Christ suffered on the cross, when Moses led Israel through the Red Sea—nay, even when Adam first came from the hand of his Maker; then, as now, Niagara was roaring here.”