Prayer Proclamation by President Lincoln

Reflecting on a time when the United States had a righteous and noble leader, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was the 16^th President.  He guided the nation through the Civil War with great wisdom and humility.  “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right” (Second Inaugural speech), he endeavored to hold the nation together and end the evil of slavery.  During the Civil War (1861-1865), President Lincoln called the nation to “a day of humiliation, prayer, and fasting,” three times.  Each came at the request of the Congress.  The text included is his 1863 proclamation.  Just 27 months later, the Civil War ended.  Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation on 1 January 1863, to free the slaves, but that was not sufficient.  I believe these voluntary days of “national prayer and humiliation,” and the ongoing prayers of God’s people, may have been the most decisive factor in ending both slavery and the War.  The same, even without presidential leadership, is necessary to end abortion in our day.