April 15th: The Day Abraham Lincoln Died

"The last breath was drawn at 21 minutes and 55 seconds past 7 A.M. and the last heart beat flickered at 22 minutes and 10 seconds past the hour on Saturday, April 15, 1865." Carl Sandburg marked Lincoln's last moment of life in his monumental biography of Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln had prophetic dreams about his pending assassination. He considered himself a man of destiny and believed that his life would end at the hands of an assassin. Few will miss the irony of his assassination taking place on Good Friday, the day that Jesus suffered crucifixion on the cross. Lincoln had lived in a way similar to Christ, carrying his cross throughout the four bloodiest years in the history of the United States of America as the leader of the cause to preserve the union.

Lincoln's death came a few days after General U.S. Grant received the surrender of General Robert E. Lee on Palm Sunday 1865. Although the Confederacy had yet to formally surrender, all expected a complete and unconditional surrender soon. President Lincoln had made a daring visit to Richmond the day after Grant's army rode into the city. Lincoln sat in Jefferson Davis's chair in the capital building, pondering the man who had sat as his adversary throughout the four, long, horrendous years.

Lincoln had not even wanted to attend Ford's Theater that evening. He had no interest in watching the British play, Our American Cousin. Yet is wife insisted, wanting to celebrate the expected end of the war with levity and amusement. Once the announcement had been made in the newspapers, Lincoln felt obliged to attend, even though he had forebodings.

The death of Lincoln, like the death of Christ, seemed destined and nothing could stop it. Just as the Civil War seemed destined to exact the death of 620,000 North and South, Providence appeared to require the death of Lincoln upon the cross for the nation's sin of slavery. Slavery, that horrific practice of owning men like animals, led the United States into hell fire and brimstone, into an apocalypse of fury and destruction.

Why had the English colonies in America received African slaves? Pure and simple, making a profit through selling agricultural products. During the 1600s in New Amsterdam, slavery had been admitted and then dropped. The Dutch plan to create plantations worked by African slaves failed. In Jamestown, the effort to plant slavery in the 1600s succeeded. The Southern way of life and slavery became inextricably interwoven, especially for the aristocratic slave holders like Washington and Jefferson.

Slavery. The cross upon which Lincoln died. Did John Wilkes Booth, the foremost Shakespearean actor at the time in the United States, assassinate Lincoln because he abolished slavery? No. Booth's reason for killing Lincoln lay simply in his fury at the disgrace brought by the South's defeat. He held Lincoln responsible for that defeat and humiliation. Ironically, Lincoln would much rather have attended a Shakespeare play with Booth on the stage than Our American Cousin.

If God had wanted to save Lincoln's life that night, he could have easily done so. A combination of events, all essential to the success of the assassination, coincided. Lincoln's preferred body guard had other duties, leaving a misfit to protect his back in Ford's Theater. Rather than stay at his post, he went out for drink and women in the street. That allowed Booth to take his hiding place next to Lincoln's box. Booth used a single shot derringer from five feet distance to kill Lincoln. Angels surely could have fended away that inadequate bullet. But, no, the bullet struck Lincoln mortally.

Why did Lincoln have to die, crucified on Good Friday? If he had lived, how very different the Reconstruction would have been. Lincoln's lack of desire for revenge, his single-minded intention to forgive and welcome back all southerns who took a pledge of allegiance to the United States of America, his commitment to ease freed slaves successfully into the fabric of American society would have made for a very different nation.

Instead, Andrew Johnson, the vice president sworn in upon Lincoln's death, had a far less charitable stance toward the South. He held that punishment for rebellion is the proper and right course. The North would force the South through Reconstruction. The long road for freed slaves into full citizenship began. A road that, under Lincoln, certainly would have been shorter and more successful. If Lincoln had served through his second term, maybe Fredrick Douglas would have eliminated the need for Martin Luther King 100 years later. Who knows? Who knows . . . .

Yet we are often pawns of destiny far more than shapers of destiny. We have parts to play in the grand unfolding of the Providence of God. Why did God require the sacrifice of Abraham Lincoln on April 15th, 1865? Why did God require the sacrifice of Jesus Christ the same day about 1830 years earlier? The ways of God are mysterious and past all understanding. Yet we know that great people who believe in love often end their earthly lives on the cross. And, although we would prefer---as surely they would---that they lived, through their life and death on the cross of the providence, the world is a vastly better place.

Can't We All Just Get Along?

The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

--George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

George Washington knew the animosity of party all too well. By the time that he finished his term as the first president of the United States, Washington had had more than his fill of vile attacks upon his person through the print media.

Washington had hoped that the infant USA would navigate a course between the two extremes of party, at that time called the Federalists (the mother of the Republican party) and the Republicans (the mother of the Democratic party). Yet he saw the rigid lines drawn between the Federalists and the Republicans and feared that they had become an institution in USA political life. And they had.

Why did we fail to maintain one party, instead opting for two major parties and a host of very small independent parties? What is it in human nature that drove us to create partisan stances with a clear line drawn in the sand?

It is all about human nature. That is, how we view human nature. No better way exists to understand the character of the Republican party and the Democratic party than to compare the founders of those parties, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

John Adams came from Boston, the home of Puritanism in the USA. His way of life kept much of the Puritan world view. By the way, the Puritans received a lot of bad press which the scholar Perry Miller went a long ways toward dispelling. Adams believed in the depraved nature of the human soul, that we have been afflicted with sin through the fall of Adam and Eve. Regardless of the sophistication of our education, we will never overcome the power of temptation to sin by reason alone. The grace of God, the holiness that comes from living a life of holiness, will alone preserve our souls.

Thomas Jefferson came from Charlottesville, about 130 miles from Jamestown, the birthplace of Virginia and the USA. Jefferson embodied the Virginia plantation slaveholder who cherished reason. He embodied the cruel dichotomy of espousing freedom and equality while holding men in slavery to work his fields, build his mansions, and father his children. Jefferson selectively chose which words he believed in the Bible, holding no place for sin and the depravity of the soul. Instead, all things could be achieved through reason and education.

There you have the basic, fundamental, difference between the Republican world view and the Democratic world view. The Republican world view embraces the Puritan belief in resisting temptation and sin through prayer, holiness, and hard work. The goal is to create the Holy Commonwealth of saints. The Democratic viewpoint uplifts reason as the means to salvation for the person and the human race. There is no human sin, no depravity of the soul. We achieve the New Jerusalem through freedom, equality, and reason.

The Republican and Democratic viewpoints each have their weaknesses. The Republican view, with it's belief in the will, can fall toward the sin of fascism. The tendency to see a race as supreme and a holy people chosen to rule the world. The Democratic viewpoint can, with it's belief in the power of reason, error towards utopianism and sexual immorality. The belief in the power of reason can lead to the practice of imposing a communistic rule over others and a naiveté about the power of passion to derail the reasonable person.

George Washington embodied the strengths and weaknesses of both the Republican and the Democratic parties. A pious Christian and a Mason, he believed in the depravity of the soul and the power of temptation. A Virginian, he embraced the Enlightenment's reverence of reason while owning a plantation with slaves forced to labor as chattel for him.

So, although Washington called for citizens of the USA to stand above party in his farewell address, he fell short of embodying a person neither Democrat nor Republican. What kind of person would that be?

They would embrace God as the creator, seek holiness in community, accept the depravity of the soul while embracing the power of reason. They would not draw lines between the races but see all people as their brothers and sisters. They would not see the USA as the supreme savior of the human race, commissioned to rule over them, but as a nation especially blessed with values, principles, and wealth to help the community of nations.

One concluding note on friendship between Republican and Democrat. In the later years of their lives, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson strengthened their relationship as dear and close friends. Their exchange of letters is a treasure of profound thought and endearing sentiments. They died on July 4, 1826, Adams on his farm near Boston and Jefferson on his plantation near Charlottesville, each asking about the other with their dying breath. In the end, one in love and respect, true patriots both.

God Sometimes Tricks Us

Yes. Sometimes God tricks us. Always for our own good. And usually to get us to do something we don't want to do.

For example, the United States did not want to enter World War II against Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy. In fact, the foremost people in the USA staunchly stood for pacifism, including the almost god-like Charles Lindbergh, the hero who first flew across the Atlantic solo. Let anyone speak out against pacifism in the 1930s and they would receive the kind of scathing condemnation that Carrie Prajean, Miss California in the Miss USA contest, got from Perez Hilton and his buddies for her stand supporting traditional marriage. Politically incorrect, to say the least.

Yet God had another idea. He wanted the USA to enter World War II and help defeat fascist Germany. So, how did he do that? He helped Japan sneak attack the USA at Pearl Harbor. What! God helped a fascist nation deal a terrible blow to the USA! Yes. Because we held the unjust, cowardly, and self-seeking view that Hitler could have Europe for all we care. We have our security and comfort separated by 3000 miles of Atlantic ocean. Let's live by George Washington's admonishment to keep out of entanglements with Europe.

We should have detected the huge Japanese fleet approaching Hawaii. We didn't. The US military commanders at Hawaii should have received telegrams informing them of the likelihood of a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. They didn't. The newly installed radar should have alerted the US forces at Pearl Harbor of the approaching squadrons of Japanese dive bombers and fighters. It didn't. Even the detection and destruction of miniature submarines in Pearl Harbor didn't put the US forces on full alert. It just seemed destined that the US Navy, Army Air Force, Army, and Marines would be caught relaxing that beautiful Sunday morning on December 7, 1941.

The combination of oversights and mistaken judgments seemed so unbelievable that many scholars of American history believe Franklin Roosevelt allowed Japan to successfully attack the US forces at Pearl Harbor to give the USA reason to fully enter World War II. That is wrong, but not far from the truth. God allowed Japan to attack the USA to bring us into WWII. And thank God He did! The USA, teamed with Great Britain, the Soviet Union, Australia, New Zealand and the underground resistance of conquered nations to bring down the satanic ideology of fascism advanced by Germany, Italy, and Japan. Could you image the world today if the USA had stood on the sidelines allowing the fascist forces to conquer the world? That is too bleak to imagine. For one thing, there would be no Jews, homosexuals, lesbians, gypsies, or, for that matter, anyone other than Aryans living on the earth. That is, unless Japan and Italy could defeat Hitler in a battle of the victors.

Then came another of God's tricks! God needed the USA involved in the Middle East to help free it from feudalism and introduce democracy. There is no way in hell that the United States would do that unless we saw it as in our national interest to do so. We are reluctant warriors for any cause other than that which directly affects us. Maybe that is a good thing. At least it keeps us from jumping into every holy crusade that pops up from time to time. But God wanted the USA to get involved more than holding a few peace retreats at Camp David, sending military hardware to our player of the day in the Middle East, supporting Israel with money and weapons, and talking peace at the UN. So God tricked us.

We believed that Saddam worked to develop weapons of mass destruction. By "we", I mean the entire world intelligence community. Saddam may have planted that idea to protect his brutal dictatorship, hoping that would intimidate the USA and others. We got fooled. We believed that Saddam had been close to producing nuclear and biological weapons and, for that reason, the United States and Great Britain, with a small coalition of nations supporting, invaded Iraq in 2003.

Why did God trick us? Because he needed the terrorist dictator Saddam Hussein removed and a democratic Islamic republic established in fact, not just in name. He needed the first successful Islamic democracy in the Middle East, a democracy rich in oil, water, and educated people. With Iraq a thriving Islamic democracy, other nations in the Middle East would topple the same way one after another. And guess what? We won the war in Iraq! Has anyone noticed? Of course, much remains for the Iraqi people to work out. But once people taste freedom and equality, it is impossible to give it up.

Within a few years, Iraq will be a relatively stable, prosperous democracy shaped by Islamic values. Iran's religious fanatical leaders will fall to a popular uprising. Saudi Arabia will experience a revolution in which the king and prince oligarchy will turn upside down. And, most importantly, Israel will be at peace with her neighbors, cooperating in the development of the Middle East rather than continually struggling to survive surrounded by deadly enemies.

The next generation will have a much kinder view of the presidency of George W. Bush. He will be remembered as the one who toppled the Berlin Wall of Islamic despotism. Even though God tricked him into doing it.