Jeff Jacoby e-mails:
Apropos Lincoln — since I just read your item mentioning it — three quick
thoughts:
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, “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous
altogether.”
1. Can you imagine the horror-stricken reaction if the Republican in the
White House today were to give a speech quoting Psalms as a justification
for war?
2. Lincoln’s point in that passage is the best refutation of those who
demand reparations for slavery: The debt has already been paid.
3. What Palin was referring to wasn’t the 2d inaugural address. It was
this remark, attributed to Lincoln in response to a clergyman who said that
he hoped that God was on the Union’s side:
“I am not at all concerned about that, for I know that the Lord is
always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and
prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord’s side.”