Brother Giles asked me to prepare a lesson on Abraham Lincoln, obviously a follow-up to the lesson he gave on George Washington.  Both of these men were “instruments in the hands of God,” an interesting phrase that I’ll say more about later.

There are several principles that are very basic.  Two are that God is in charge, and that He knows the end even from before the beginning.  Thus He raises up an instrument or plants an idea or arranges for a situation to happen way before the time of the event.  I learned of an interesting example of this just this past Wednesday at the temple.

Our friend and co-worker, Boyd Hill, served 6 years in the Idaho legislature.  Just as his 6 years were ending he learned that $200 million was going to be placed in a contingency fund.  An idea occurred to him that $36 million of that could be better used to improve infrastructure in Meridian.  He drafted a bill that would widen the bridges on some Meridian, Idaho streets.  He was part of the Republican majority, but took his bill to the Democratic minority whip to see if he could get his support.  He and the minority whip voted against each other 90% of the time, but the minority whip got behind his bill.

The bill passed the House and was sent to the Senate where it was amended and changed until the only thing resembling the original bill was the name.  When it came back to the House, Boyd recommended that it be voted down, which it was.

It was time for the legislature to adjourn for the year, but the Democratic minority whip wouldn’t consent to adjournment.  When the leadership of the legislature asked him what would be required before he would consent to adjourn, he replied, “Pass Boyd’s bill.”  Boyd’s bill was reintroduced in its original form, and passed.  The bridges were widened.  For a good many years the wide bridges along narrow Chinden Road looked odd and out of place.

But then the area began growing.  Meridian and Middleton and Star and the whole area seemed to explode in population.  That area is now perhaps the fastest-growing area in the country.  One day President Monson arrived with a delegation of Church authorities whose purpose was to select a place to build a new temple.  After looking at several locations they found themselves in an alfalfa field outside Meridian.  President Monson separated himself from the group, walked off a little way, looked around, and returned to the group with the announcement that this was where the new temple would be built.

With tears in his eyes Boyd said that suddenly he understood why he’d been impressed to push for widening those bridges years earlier.  When President Monson selected that piece of ground for a new temple, the infrastructure was already in place.  Otherwise the Church would have been called upon to spend many millions of dollars to make the improvements that would be necessary to handle the increased traffic.  Brother Hill had unknowingly been an instrument in the hands of God.

Abraham Lincoln was an instrument in the hands of God.  I’d like to tell the story chronologically.  He was born in 1809.  He was just a little over three years younger than the Prophet Joseph Smith.  They were contemporaries.

In 1844 the Saints had been persecuted and pushed to their limits.  The Lord told the Saints to “importune at the feet of the judge; and if he heed them not, let them importune at the feet of the governor; and if the governor heed them not, let them importune at the feet of the president; and if the president heed them not, then will the Lord arise and come forth out of his hiding place, and in his fury vex the nation, and in his hot displeasure, and in his fierce anger, in his time, will cut off those wicked, unfaithful, and unjust stewards, and appoint them their portion among hypocrites, and unbelievers; even in outer darkness, where there is weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.  Pray ye, therefore, that their ears may be opened unto your cries, that I may be merciful unto them, that these things may not come upon them.”  (D&C 101: 86-92).

Joseph went to Martin Van Buren, president of the United States, and laid the case before him.  The president replied, “Gentlemen, your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you.”

And it was so.  The president was powerless to intervene in the affairs of the states because of a thing called “states’ rights.”

James Madison, the father of the Constitution, had noticed a deficiency when the Bill of Rights was being drafted.  He wanted an amendment that would say, “No state shall violate the equal rights of conscience, or the freedom of the press, or the trial by jury in criminal cases.”  As originally drafted, only the federal government would have to uphold the Constitution, not the states.  He said that, “If there was any reason to restrain the Government of the United States from infringing upon these essential rights, it was equally necessary that they should be secured against the State Governments.”

But his amendment was defeated.  The states wanted to be free to oppress whomsoever they wished to oppress.  Therefore, when Lilburn W. Boggs issued the extermination order, he was entirely within his rights to do so because of states’ rights.  Slave states were also entirely within their rights to deny freedom to black people.  Slavery was legal.  The thought that “all men are created equal” only applied to white people.  A Missourian stated that “Mormons should not have civil rights, no more than the Negroes.”

Joseph already knew what was coming.  Twelve years earlier he had prophesied that the Civil War would take place.  In 1832 he named the place where it would begin, and said that it would be over the slave question.  Having been rebuffed by the President of the United States, Joseph Smith had only one other recourse to try to save the country from the Lord arising in his fury to vex the nation:

He announced his candidacy for President of the United States.  Sidney Rigdon was his running mate.  The cornerstones of his candidacy were the abolishment of slavery, and the strengthening of the federal government to enable the federal government to step in and to protect minorities whose rights were being abused by the states.  He would push for those two amendments to the Constitution.  He made the statement that “The states rights doctrine are what feed mobs.”

Both of the amendments that Joseph advocated were added to the Constitution as amendments 14 and 15 following the war.

Joseph Smith was killed.  In response to all of these events, the Lord removed the Saints from the country.  When the Civil War erupted, the Church was safely nestled in the valleys of the mountains where it avoided the entire conflict.

The year before Joseph died, he had dinner with Illinois Supreme Court Justice Stephen A. Douglas.  He prophesied to him, “Judge, you will aspire to the presidency of the United States; and if you ever turn your hand against me or the Latter-day Saints, you will feel the weight of the hand of the Almighty upon you; and you will live to see and know that I have testified the truth to you.”

Thirteen years later, in 1857, Douglas did just that.  He stated that “the knife must be applied to this pestiferous, disgusting cancer (Mormonism) which is gnawing into the very vitals of the body politic.”  In 1860 he was selected by the Democratic party as its candidate for president, and he was expected to win.

Also aspiring to the presidency was the Republican governor of New York, William Seward.  There was little question but that he would be the Republican candidate, but Abraham Lincoln was nominated instead.  Against all odds Lincoln was elected.  Stephen A. Douglas died that same year, a broken man.

One of Lincoln’s first acts was to ask William Seward to serve as his secretary of state.  Seward became his friend and confidant.  Lincoln relied on him like on no other.  Theirs became a Joseph- and Hyrum-like relationship.

Though Lincoln hated slavery, he had no intention of trying to abolish it.  He wasn’t going to touch it.  Southern states felt that the institution of slavery would be in danger if a Republican was elected, and announced that they would secede in that event.  And they did.  They attacked Fort Sumter, which was federal property.  Lincoln had no choice but to respond.

By all odds the war should have been a quick one, with the North the victor.  The North had nearly all of the railroads, nearly all of the industry, and 4 million men.  The South only had 800,000.  But the Lord was in charge, and the nation had a great deal of repenting to do.  The Lord was going to carry out the vexing of the nation as He had promised to do.  The South was the victor in all of the battles at the start of the war.

The war was not Lincoln’s only problem.  He had an 11-year-old son, Willie, who was very dear to him.  In November 1861 Willie contracted typhoid fever and died.  It was a severe blow to Lincoln, and exacerbated the depression that he was subject to all of his life.  Willie’s death, however, had the effect of turning Abraham to God more than anything else which had happened to him.

Lincoln came to the presidency with another pressing problem.  It was what to do about the “Mormon question.”  His predecessor, James Buchanan, had sent an army to Utah to try to settle the question.  He also appointed a virulently anti-Mormon governor of the territory.  Many in the Republican party were pressing for Lincoln to do something.

Instead of acting impulsively, Lincoln did a novel thing:  He went to the Library of Congress and checked out a first-edition copy of the Book of Mormon.  He did that the same month that Willie died.  Usually his books were returned in a day or two, but he kept this one for 8 months, and apparently dog-eared the copy.

Lincoln came to a decision.  He sent a message to Brigham Young through T.B.H. Stenhouse of the Deseret News.  He said to him, “When I was a boy on the farm in Illinois there was a great deal of timber on the farms which we had to clear away.  Occasionally we would come to a log which had fallen down.  It was too hard to split, too wet to burn and too heavy to move, so we plowed around it.  That’s what I intend to do with the Mormons.  You go back and tell Brigham Young that...I will let him alone.”  He fired the territorial governor, and appointed a “very discreet gentleman who would support Lincoln’s policy of leaving the Saints alone.”  (The Lincoln Hypothesis,, Timothy Ballard, pg. 186).

During this depressing period of time, while he dealt with his personal problems, and while the North was being trounced by the South, Lincoln changed his outlooks and objectives.  He became deeply religious, and realized that there were some higher purposes to this war.  He realized that he had been brought to the presidency for a purpose, and that that purpose was to abolish slavery entirely.  He confided to William Seward that that was his objective.  Knowing that would be an unpopular position, Seward counseled him to wait to announce it until the North had a victory.  Lincoln waited.

As the battle of Gettysburg approached, things were at a crisis.  If the South should win the battle, Robert E. Lee would march into Washington D.C., and the war would be over.  Following the battle, Lincoln visited General Dan Sickles in a military hospital where the wounded general was fighting for his life.  He told him the following:

“In the pinch of the campaign up there [at Gettysburg] when everybody seemed panic stricken and nobody could tell what was going to happen, oppressed by the gravity of our affairs, I went to my room one day and locked the door and got down on my knees before Almighty God and prayed to Him mightily for victory at Gettysburg.  I told Him that this war was His war, and our cause His cause....And I then and there made a solemn vow to Almighty God, that if He would stand by our boys at Gettysburg, I would stand by Him.  And He did stand by your boys, and I will stand by Him....Never before had I prayed with so much earnestness.  I wish I could repeat my prayer.  I felt I must put all my trust in Almighty God.  He gave our people the best country ever given to man.  He alone could save it from destruction.  I had tried my best to do my duty and found myself unequal to the task.  The burden was more than I could bear.  I asked Him to help us and give us victory now....And after that, I don’t know how it was, and I cannot explain it, but soon a sweet comfort crept into my soul.  The feeling came that God had taken the whole business into His own hands and that things would go all right at Gettysburg.  And that is why I had no fears about you.”  (Ibid, pages 191-192).

He then took the general’s hand in his and said, “Sickles, I have been told, as you have been told perhaps, that your condition is serious.  I am in a prophetic mood today.  You will get well.”  And he did.

The battle of Gettysburg ended on July 4th, 1863.  It was a victory for the North.  The battle of Vicksburg concluded on that same day, also a major victory for the North.  Everyone took those victories for a sign.

Some time later Lincoln and Seward were on a train going to Gettysburg to dedicate the cemetery.  He instructed Seward to initiate a national day of Thanksgiving to God.  He gave his famous Gettysburg Address before a crowd of 25,000 people, which was half the number killed in that battle.  It was following the battle of Gettysburg that Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation.

Richmond, Virginia, the capitol of the Confederate States, fell to the North on April 2, 1865.  Lincoln visited the ruined city.  He was met by hoards of black people, newly-freed slaves, who fell down at his feet and would have worshiped him.  He told them that wasn’t proper, and that they must worship only God, keep His commandments, and learn and obey the laws of the land.  He freed 4 million slaves.

600,000 people were killed in the Civil War.  That’s more Americans than were killed in all the wars from the Revolutionary War through World War II combined.  It was a terrible price to pay.  The lesson we need to take from it is that freedom is not free.

Lincoln was reelected president in November 1864.  In Salt Lake City there was a mile-long parade.  The Latter-day Saints came to admire Lincoln.  Interestingly, he has been quoted in general conference over 200 times.

During Lincoln’s darkest hours, at about the same time that his son Willie died, and while Lincoln had his Book of Mormon, and as he was praying for help and receiving answers, Julia Ward Howe wrote a song.  She says, “I awoke in the grey of the morning, and as I lay waiting for dawn, the long lines of the desired poem began to entwine themselves in my mind, and I said to myself, ‘I must get up and write these verses, lest I fall asleep and forget them!’  So I sprang out of bed and in the dimness found an old stump of a pen, which I remembered using the day before.  I scrawled the verses almost without looking at the paper.”  (Ibid, pg. 199).

Maybe the first person to perform the hymn in public was Army Chaplain, Charles Caldwell McCabe.  His performance was described as “magical.”  People shouted, wept, and sang.  One voice was heard above the rest.  It was President Lincoln, with tears streaming down his face.  In his famous high-pitched voice he said, “Sing it again!”

I need to mention Abraham’s connections to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Timothy Ballard has an hypothesis that Abraham Lincoln read and used the Book of Mormon.  To my mind the best evidence of that is his use of the phrase “an instrument in the hands of God.”  That phrase is not in the Bible, but is found a dozen times in the Book of Mormon, and numerous times in Lincoln’s speeches.

His other connection took place 12 years after his death.  In August of 1877 he appeared to Wilford Woodruff in the St. George Temple along with the Signers of the Declaration of Independence and all but three of the deceased presidents of the United States (Van Buren, Buchanan, Grant).  They said, “Nothing has ever been done for us.  We laid the foundation of the government you now enjoy, and we never apostatized from it, but we remained true to it and were faithful to God.”  (Ibid, pg. 217).

The Signers were there, plus 50 other men, making 100 in all, and 70 eminent women, who were all baptized, following which they were each endowed.

27 August 2018