Selected Correspondance of Abraham Lincoln 1863 Letter To Alexander Reed
by Abraham Lincoln
EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
February 22, 1863.
REV. ALEXANDER REED.
MY DEAR SIR:--Your note, by which you, as General Superintendent of
the United States Christian Commission, invite me to preside at a
meeting to be held this day at the hall of the House of
Representatives in this city, is received.
While, for reasons which I deem sufficient, I must decline to
preside, I cannot withhold my approval of the meeting and its worthy
objects.
Whatever shall be, sincerely and in God's name, devised for the good
of the soldiers and seamen in their hard spheres of duty, can
scarcely fail to be blessed; and whatever shall tend to turn our
thoughts from the unreasoning and uncharitable passions, prejudices,
and jealousies incident to a great national trouble such as ours, and
to fix them on the vast and long enduring consequences, for weal or
for woe, which are to result from the struggle, and especially to
strengthen our reliance on the Supreme Being for the final triumph of
the right, cannot but be well for us all.
The birthday of Washington and the Christian Sabbath coinciding this
year, and suggesting together the highest interests of this life and
of that to come, is most propitious for the meeting proposed.
