lincoln and the churches

by john g. nicolay and john hay

note.—some of the important material bearing upon lincoln's religious convictions which was collected by nicolay and hay and published in the century magazine, has, through faulty indexing, been almost lost. the words "churches" and "religion" are not in the thick index in the tenth volume of their great work. finding in the century magazine for august, 1889, an important article on this subject, i searched in vain for any way of finding it in the book by means of the index, and two librarians, working in separate libraries, searched for it and reported to me that it was not in the book. i came to the conclusion that in the editing of the work for its publication in book form, the two former secretaries of the president had deemed some of this matter too personal for their title, "abraham lincoln: a history." but i have discovered the missing passage in the sixth volume, pages 314-342. its testimony is in full accord with that subsequently given by mr. hay in the address delivered by him from mr. lincoln's old pew, which is printed in the volume of john hay's addresses. the article in the century is so important that the first and last portions of it will justify reprinting here. the omitted portions relate to the relations of mr. lincoln and of the government to particular churches or denominations.

w. e. b.

in a conflict which was founded upon the quickened moral sense of the people it was not strange that the government received the most earnest support from the churches. from one end of the loyal states to the other all the religious organizations, with few exceptions, moved by the double forces of patriotism and religion, ranged themselves upon the side of the government against the rebellion. a large number of pulpits in the north had already taken their places as tribunes for the defense of popular freedom, and it was from them that, at the menace of war, the first cry of danger and of defiance rang out. those ministers who had for years been denouncing the encroachments of slavery did not wait for any organized action on the part of their colleagues, but proclaimed at once in a thousand varying tones that peace was "a blessing worth fighting for." the more conservative churches were but little in the rear of the more advanced. those who had counseled moderation and patience with the south on account of[pg 378] the divided responsibility for slavery which rested on both halves of the nation speedily felt the sense of release front the obligations of brotherhood when the south had repudiated and renounced them, and rallied to the support of the insulted flag with an earnestness not less ardent, and more steadily trustworthy, than that of the original antislavery clergy. as the war went on, and as every stage of it gave a clearer presage of the coming destruction of slavery, the deliverances of the churches became every day more and more decided in favor of the national cause and the downfall of human bondage. to detail the thousand ways in which the churches testified their support of the national cause, to give even an abstract of the countless expressions of loyalty which came from the different religious bodies of the country, would occupy many volumes; we can only refer briefly to a few of the more important utterances of some of the great religious societies.

in all the church conventions which met after the president's preliminary proclamation of the 22d of september, 1862, that act of liberation was greeted with the heartiest expressions of approval and support.

as the national authority began to be re?stablished throughout the states in rebellion, not the least embarrassing of the questions which generals in command were called upon to decide was that of the treatment of churches whose pastors were openly or covertly disloyal to the union. there was no general plan adopted by the government for such cases; in fact, it was impossible to formulate a policy which should meet so vast a variety of circumstances as presented themselves in the different regions of the south. the board of missions of the methodist church sent down some of their ablest ministers, with general authority to take charge of abandoned churches, and to establish in them their interrupted worship. the mission boards of other denominations took similar action, and the secretary of war[75] gave general orders to the officers commanding the different departments to permit ministers of the gospel bearing the commission of these mission boards to exercise the functions of their office and to give them all the aid, countenance, and support which might be practicable. but before and after these orders there was much clashing between the military and the ecclesiastical authorities, which had its rise generally in the individual tempera[pg 379]ments of the respective generals and priests. there was an instance in one place where a young officer rose in his pew and requested an episcopal minister to read the prayer for the president of the united states, which he had omitted. upon the minister's refusal the soldier advanced to the pulpit and led the preacher, loudly protesting, to the door, and then quietly returning to the altar himself read the prayer—not much, it is to be feared, to the edification of the congregation. general butler arrested a clergyman in norfolk, and placed him at hard labor on the public works for disloyalty in belief and action; but the president reversed this sentence and changed it to one of exclusion from the union lines.[76] the catholic bishop of natchez having refused to read the prescribed form of prayer for the president, and having protested in an able and temperate paper against the orders of the commanding general in this regard, the latter ordered him to be expelled from the union lines, although the order was almost immediately rescinded. general rosecrans issued an order[77] in missouri requiring the members of religious convocations to give satisfactory evidence of their loyalty to the government of the united states as a condition precedent to their assemblage and protection. in answer to the protestations which naturally resulted from this mandate he replied that it was given at the request of many loyal church members, both lay and clerical; that if he should permit all bodies claiming to be religious to meet without question, a convocation of price's army, under the garb of religion, might assemble with impunity and plot treason. he claimed that there was no hardship in compelling the members of such assemblages to establish their loyalty by oath and certificate, and insisted that his order, while providing against public danger, really protected the purity and the freedom of religion.

in the course of these controversies between secessionist ministers and commanding generals an incident occurred which deserves a moment's notice, as it led to a clear and vigorous statement from mr. lincoln of his attitude in regard to these matters. during the year 1862 a somewhat bitter discussion arose between the rev. dr. mcpheeters of the vine street church in st. louis and some of his congregation in regard to his supposed sympathies with the rebellion. looking back upon the controversy from this distance of time it seems that rather[pg 380] hard measure was dealt to the parson; for although, from all the circumstances of the case, there appears little doubt that his feelings were strongly enlisted in the cause of the rebellion, he behaved with so much discretion that the principal offenses charged against him by his zealous parishioners were that he once baptized a small rebel by the name of sterling price, and that he would not declare himself in favor of the union. the difference in his church grew continually more flagrant and was entertained by interminable letters and statements on both sides, until at last the provost-marshal intervened, ordering the arrest of dr. mcpheeters, excluding him from his pulpit, and taking the control of his church out of the hands of its trustees. this action gave rise to extended comment, not only in missouri, but throughout the union. the president, being informed of it, wrote[78] to general curtis disapproving the act of the provost-marshal, saying, in a terse and vigorous phrase, which immediately obtained wide currency, "the united states government must not, as by this order, undertake to run the churches. when an individual in a church, or out of it, becomes dangerous to the public interest he must be checked; but let the churches, as such, take care of themselves." but even this peremptory and unmistakable command did not put an end to the discussion. taking the hands of the government away from the preacher did not quench the dissensions in the church, nor restore the pastor to the position which he occupied before the war; and almost a year later some of the friends of dr. mcpheeters considered it necessary and proper to ask the intervention of the president to restore to him all his ecclesiastical privileges in addition to the civil rights which they admitted he already enjoyed. this the president, in a letter[79] of equal clearness and vigor, refused to do. "i have never interfered," he said, "nor thought of interfering, as to who shall, or shall not, preach in any church; nor have i knowingly or believingly tolerated anyone else to so interfere by my authority"; but he continues, "if, after all, what is now sought is to have me put dr. mcpheeters back over the heads of a majority of his own congregation, that too will be declined. i will not have control of any church on any side." the case finally ended by the exclusion of dr. mcpheeters from his pulpit by the order of the presbytery having ecclesiastical authority in the case.

in this wise and salutary abstention from any interference[pg 381] with the churches, which was dictated by his own convictions as well as enjoined by the constitution, the president did not always have the support of his subordinates. he had not only, as we have seen, to administer occasional rebukes to his over-zealous generals, but even in his own cabinet he was sometimes compelled to overrule a disposition to abuse of authority in things spiritual. several weeks after he had so clearly expressed himself in the mcpheeters case, he found, to his amazement, that the secretary of war had been giving orders virtually placing the army in certain places at the disposition of a methodist bishop for the enforcement of his ecclesiastical decrees. he addressed to mr. stanton a note of measured censure,[80] which was followed by an order from the war department explaining and modifying the more objectionable features of the former document. the secretary explained that his action had no other intention than to furnish "a means of rallying the methodist people in favor of the union, in localities where the rebellion had disorganized and scattered them."[81] this explanation was not entirely satisfactory to the president, but he thought best to make no further public reference to the matter. scarcely was this affair disposed of when a complaint was received from memphis of some interference by the military with a church edifice there. mr. lincoln made upon the paper this peremptory indorsement: "if the military have military need of the church building, let them keep it; otherwise, let them get out of it, and leave it and its owners alone, except for the causes that justify the arrest of anyone."[82] two months later the president, hearing of further complications in the case, made still another order, which even at the risk of wearying the reader we will give, from his own manuscript, as illustrating not only his conscientious desire that justice should be done, but also the exasperating obstacles he was continually compelled to surmount, in those troubled times, to accomplish, with all the vast powers at his disposition, this reasonable desire.

[pg 382]

"i am now told that the military were not in possession of the building; and yet that in pretended execution of the above they, the military, put one set of men out of and another set into the building. this, if true, is most extraordinary. i say again, if there be no military need for the building, leave it alone, neither putting anyone in or out of it, except on finding someone preaching or practicing treason, in which case lay hands upon him, just as if he were doing the same thing in any other building, or in the streets or highways."[83]

he at last made himself understood and his orders respected; yet so widespread was the tendency of generals to meddle with matters beyond their jurisdiction, that it took three years of such vehement injunctions as these to teach them to keep their hands away from the clergy and the churches.

lincoln had a profound respect for every form of sincere religious belief. he steadily refused to show favor to any particular denomination of christians; and when general grant issued an unjust and injurious order against the jews, expelling them from his department, the president ordered it to be revoked the moment it was brought to his notice.[84]

he was a man of profound and intense religious feeling. 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. but leaving aside these apocryphal evidences, we have only to look at his authentic public and private utterances to see how deep and strong in all the latter part of his life was the current of his religious thought and emotion. he continually invited and appreciated, at their highest value, the prayers of good people. the pressure of the tremendous problems by which he was surrounded; the awful moral significance of the conflict in which he was the chief combatant; the overwhelming sense of personal responsibility, which never left him for an hour—all contributed to produce, in a temperament naturally serious and predisposed to a spiritual view of life and conduct, a sense of reverent acceptance of the guidance of a superior[pg 383] power. from that morning when, standing amid the falling snowflakes on the railway car at springfield, he asked the prayers of his neighbors in those touching phrases whose echo rose that night in invocations from thousands of family altars, to that memorable hour when on the steps of the capitol he humbled himself before his creator in the sublime words of the second inaugural, there is not an expression known to have come from his lips or his pen but proves that he held himself answerable in every act of his career to a more august tribunal than any on earth. the fact that he was not a communicant of any church, and that he was singularly reserved in regard to his personal religious life, gives only the greater force to these striking proofs of his profound reverence and faith.

in final substantiation of this assertion, we subjoin two papers from the hand of the president, one official and the other private, which bear within themselves the imprint of a sincere devotion and a steadfast reliance upon the power and benignity of an overruling providence. the first is an order which he issued on the 16th of november, 1864, on the observance of sunday:

"the president, commander-in-chief of the army and navy, desires and enjoins the orderly observance of the sabbath by the officers and men in the military and naval service. the importance for man and beast of the prescribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of christian soldiers and sailors, a becoming deference to the best sentiment of christian people, and a due regard for the divine will, demand that sunday labor in the army and navy be reduced to the measure of strict necessity. the discipline and character of the national forces should not suffer, nor the cause they defend be imperiled, by the profanation of the day or name of the most high. 'at this time of public distress [adopting the words of washington in 1776] men may find enough to do in the service of their god and their country without abandoning themselves to vice and immorality.' the first general order issued by the father of his country after the declaration of independence indicated the spirit in which our institutions were founded and should ever be defended. 'the general hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a christian soldier, defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country.'"[85]

[pg 384]

the date of this remarkable order leaves no possibility for the insinuation that it sprung from any political purpose, or intention. mr. lincoln had just been re-elected by an overwhelming majority; his party was everywhere triumphant; his own personal popularity was unbounded; there was no temptation to hypocrisy or deceit. there is no explanation of the order except that it was the offspring of sincere conviction. but if it may be said that this was, after all, an exoteric utterance, springing from those relations of religion and good government which the wisest rulers have always recognized in their intercourse with the people, we will give one other document, of which nothing of the sort can be said. it is a paper which mr. lincoln wrote in september, 1862, while his mind was burdened with the weightiest question of his life, the weightiest with which this century has had to grapple. wearied with all the considerations of law and of expediency with which he had been struggling for two years, he retired within himself and tried to bring some order into his thoughts by rising above the wrangling of men and of parties, and pondering the relations of human government to the divine. in this frame of mind, absolutely detached from any earthly considerations, he wrote this meditation. it has never been published. it was not written to be seen of men. it was penned in the awful sincerity of a perfectly honest soul trying to bring itself into closer communion with its maker.

"the will of god prevails. in great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of god. both may be and one must be wrong. god cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. in the present civil war it is quite possible that god's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party; and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect his purpose. i am almost ready to say that this is probably true; that god wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. by his mere great power on the minds of the now contestants, he could have either saved or destroyed the union without a human contest. yet the contest began. and having begun, he could give the final victory to either side any day. yet the contest proceeds."

[pg 385]

the following brief address by mr. lincoln appears never to have been published. it was discovered, just as this book was going to press, by mr. jesse w. weik, who hastened to send it to me. it is the shorthand report of a brief address delivered by mr. lincoln at a railroad junction near la fayette, indiana, a few hours after he had left springfield on his way to washington, saturday, february 11, 1860.

w. h. b.

when i first came to the west some forty-four or forty-five years ago, at sundown you had completed a journey of some thirty miles, which you had commenced at sunrise; and you thought you had done well. now, only six hours have elapsed since i left my home in illinois, where i was surrounded by a large concourse of my fellow citizens, most all of whom i could recognize; and i find myself far from home, surrounded by the thousands i now see before me, who are strangers to me. still we are bound together, i trust, in christianity, civilization and patriotism, and are attached to our country and our whole country. while some of us may differ in political opinions, still we are all united in one feeling for the union.