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 when, 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 prayer 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 there 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 bondsman'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, that the judgments of the Lord are true and
righteous altogether.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the