A Just and Lasting Peace : Lincoln's second inaugural address

That is divine justice?

A Union draftee from a bog in Cork dies horribly in a trench for the sins of a Brit slave trader who died rich and happy, in bed, of old age, a century before?

Ah, well.

Anything to deflect blame for the vast bloodshed he, Abraham Lincoln, chose.

[Aside:

It is interesting that in his first inaugural Lincoln attempted to appear conciliatory and perfectly willing to accept an end to secession without the least disruption of slavery in those states where it then existed.

But the iron fist was in the velvet glove, and he endorsed a theory that the union is, under the constitution, perpetual and states cannot at their individual pleasure withdraw.

And he further insisted his oath of office bound him to fight, if need be, to preserve the union intact.

He concluded by doing his best to thrust responsibility for the bloodbath to come – a bloodbath truly of his choosing and not of theirs – entirely on the South and the partisans of secession.

/Aside]