God and the Civil War: Lincoln in Moral and Theological Perspective

Author Mark J. Larson ISBN 9798989400874 Pages 173 Abraham Lincoln believed that God was the central actor in the Civil War. As president, Lincoln was not controlling events. God was the decisive actor in the conflict, and he was manifesting his justice for the complicity of both North and South in a great moral wrong. Lincoln identified as a conservative who positioned himself with the political philosophy of the Founding Fathers. Yet, he also embraced the American political tradition which maintained that Americans are a Christian people who govern themselves under the providential authority of God. He consequently stood in continuity with New England theology and Old School Presbyterianism. Lincoln had a reverence for the law that was balanced by the need to critically assess its legitimacy on the basis of natural law. Augustine and Aquinas had said the same thing. He believed that resistance to constitutional subversion is a proper response. He was standing at this poin