 Each looked for an easier time and a result less fundamental than astounding. I'd love that sentence because the kids often they think these words, they're not used to these words being used in such a powerful way. The result less fundamental and astounding. Just changing the whole country. Keep going. We'll read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each enrolls his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any man should dare to ask a just God's assistance and ring their bread in a sweat of other men's faces. But let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. Okay, let's stop again. So he's making a transition here and from determining what the cause of the war was to what? What's going on here? It's in God's hands. It's in God's hands. Where do you see that? It's just the book we're getting from the actual Bible books and everything else. It's kind of like this is faith now. He's doing something more here with that. The way he was using all before, he's using... Do you see he's using that here as well? What words does he use here to bring people together? Neither. Neither? And also... Does anybody see anything else? Both. Yep, both. Yep, neither and both. He's bringing everybody. He's saying we may not be seeing this from the same perspective, but we're all seeing it together. And I kind of take that both sides here have lost. Neither side is jumping for joy. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And he really is bringing everybody together. Let's talk about the dig for a second. What's his dig here? The prayers of both could not be answered. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. We can't. We're not going to be satisfied. What's his... I mean, his previous sentence, though, may seem strange. What's going on in that sentence? Anybody want to read it aloud again? Somebody, just go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in raining their bread from the sweater of other men's faces. But let us judge not that we be not judged. Is that a dig and slave right there? Yeah. How do you take that? They're making money from someone else's work. Yeah. But who do you think he's talking to there? I think it's really the South. You think he's talking... Okay, Tommy, say more about that. Slave owners. Slave owners. Yeah. Okay. And the workforce. Think about the Northerner here for a second. Why might that sentence... And I'm just thinking of this right now, so I don't think I'm so far ahead of you here. Why might that sentence be addressed to a Northern audience? I think he's... He's critical of the fact that the Northerners really didn't maybe speak up more loudly against him. Maybe that they even have labor issues themselves. Remember, he quotes the Bible here, though. He says it may seem strange that slavery exists. But, he's quoting the Bible here, let us judge not that we be not judged. So yeah, he's bringing up issues of labor in the North. And he's saying, hey, you Northerners, you abolitionists, you may think those Southerners are pieces of white trash, but let us judge not that we be not judged. You're not God. It's interesting because he's got many, many audiences here. And we're going to be playing with that in a minute. I was thinking similar to the reference of what he used to cast the first stone, be without sin. So it seems like another biblical reference to that part of the Bible. Yeah, absolutely. Let's keep going. Let's go to that quote. Well, my apologies for cutting you off. It's okay. Well unto the world because of offenses, for it must be needs be that offenses come. But woe to that man for whom the offense comes. What does this mean? What does this biblical quote mean? Let's break it down because it's not an easy one. Woe unto the world because of offenses, for it must be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes. I mean to go back to the biblical language, I think he's saying something along the line of it's a shame that we have to live in a world of sin. This is a sinful world, so we should feel sorry for ourselves. And this is a workplace where sin is going to happen. But God helped the sucker that commenced the sin. Right. Yeah, yeah. That things happen. Right. This could have been. Right. Well, and also you better not be the one who's actually doing it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And what he's doing is it almost looks here like he's setting up the south, but then let's see what comes next. You wonder if there's a little confusion in the speech because he starts out saying it's about setting the union. And then he ends up saying, well, this is really about the retribution of the slavery. Which is it? It's the big question of the Civil War, isn't it? That seems right to me. Realistically, you can't have it both ways. Even though you want it that way. I think it's more of a superficial understanding. Superficial is my middle name. No, no. I mean the whole thing about preserving the union, that's sort of the reading of it initially. But then, you know, we spent the whole week setting Lincoln and how he agnised over the stuff and his summer retreat and business that at a deeper level he's looking for a more meaningful way to frame the whole thing so that it's not necessarily contradictory but just deeper readings of the same. I would throw out to you also that Abraham Lincoln was the consummate politician. He was a great politician. He was a great leader. That's separate from his having been a great politician and that he was very conscious of the laws of the land in the way that he handled this war in the first half of the war. And in the second half, he started to become much, he was looking for a deeper meaning for himself both with the death of his son and with the death of all of these soldiers whom he was mourning. And he really started drawing on looking for a deeper meaning in a different way. So that doesn't answer your question. Back in the 19th century, didn't most Americans or at least, you know, the elites believe that democracy was a divine act. I mean, Reagan wasn't the first person to say that the United States is a city on the hill. I mean, you've got Millville and all these other guys referring to it that way. So for Abraham Lincoln, couldn't that also be the case? That to preserve the union was to keep God's purposes, God's will going on earth because as long as democracy was there, justice could be done. That's really interesting. Yeah, and that was, it was Winfrey, but it was that early on, you know, the city on the hill concept started. I remember that yesterday talking about how the declaration of independence was the apple. Yeah. Yeah, the constitution is the frame. Let's write back to that. With mavel stood none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and borne his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. I mean, this is what brings the whole thing full circle from the introduction to what Mike said about the city, started out trying to preserve the union and yes, slavery was a major part of it, but I think, you know, if that's changed people, it'll have an ability, it'll have a belief when you're a younger person and then as you get older and this experience starts to mold and shape, when you start to, especially having a child or something else, it makes you think differently. There's a war with the loss of his own child and the loss of all of these mother's children to change him, so we need to get back to a place that brings us back together. I see also that he's using this whole biblical kind of exegesis almost to set up what he says in the last paragraph. Because if none of us are responsible, then we have to move forward. We have to strive on with malice toward none and charity for all. We can't hold it against anyone. Especially when he said back in a couple of sentences before that both sides have committed sins during the course of this war. Does he really say that nobody's responsible or does he say that we're all, I started to get the sense he's saying that we're all responsible? Yes, I agree with you. I totally agree with you. We are all responsible. But he still names the insurgents. Yes. We're still pointing a finger somewhere. I was still wondering to what degree does Wiccan himself take personal responsibility for, you know, his tremendous loss. I mean, in the first inaugural, a lot of you remember, he said, I've taken it all to preserve the union. So I'm this passive agent, essentially, and I must follow my oath. But of course, he didn't have to follow his oath exactly as he sought. He had other choices, you know? What do you think? I think, and he wasn't passive. He, you know, he used the Constitution to his benefit and at other times he expanded powers in it and stretched things and kind of toyed with it in order to achieve a goal. When you're saying he's a master politician, it wasn't just, it wasn't, in my opinion, I'm a moral person that's just following my oath. He was very deliberate in what he did. He was very calculated in what he did and the way things that he followed in the Constitution, things that he chose to kind of stretch a little bit, it was all for his, kind of for this goal to win the war. Very Machiavellian. Yeah. And it's just fine. One of the phrases that I find really powerful from, I don't know if you all are ever trying to make these connections, I can imagine you're not, but I'm always looking for those threads that go through the 19th century or follow from the declaration, you know, the different political threads through to the Civil War and beyond and Lincoln was a great follower of Daniel Webster and the, you know, the Whig politician one of Webster's phrases or his,