As usual, Lincoln addressed this issue best.
Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist amongst them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist amongst us, we should not instantly give it up. This I believe of the masses north and south. ..
When southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery, than we; I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists; and that it is very difficult to get rid of it, in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution.
However, what is always and forever evil is declaring evil to be a positive good, much less launching a vicious war to protect an evil institution. I do not include all southerners in this group, not even southerners of the time. But I do that small minority of southerners who worked for and plotted to bring about secession, the Fire-Eaters.
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.
Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel. Therefore the Lord’s anger burns against his people; his hand is raised and he strikes them down. The mountains shake, and the dead bodies are like refuse in the street.
Lincoln also addressed this issue best.
If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. 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."
You’re right of course but I take a certain amusement by scatological insults who idiotically attempt to dance between the rhetorical raindrops on the issue.
;’)
It’s always amusing seeing Lincoln linked with appeals to God. He was some kind of politician, that’s for sure.
As a student of Lincoln you surely know of his reputation for ridiculing ministers in his youth. You know that he never joined a church. You know that his close friends prided themselves on being infidels, and that they defended Lincoln against the ‘charge’ of ever having been a Christian. Their defenses of Lincoln’s unbelief are easy to find. You know that one of his friends burned a manuscript of Lincoln’s to protect his ability to run for office.
But I digress. While those quotes from the Gospel of Abraham are all very poetic none of them deal with the simple little logical problem that I posted.
Slave owners = Evil.
Founders = Slave owners.
ergo:
Founders = ??
Solve for X.