As we celebrate the 250th birthday of the United States, we’re looking back on those two and a half centuries of history, and the critical role Jewish Americans and Judeo-Christian values have played in helping to create and define the beautiful nation we live in today. In the spirit of President’s Day, we remember Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation:
The Word of God has shaped much of history, including that of the United States. Writing at Tablet, Ari Lamm takes a look at how the biblical story of Queen Esther inspired Abraham Lincoln to make one of the most momentous decisions in American history:
About a week and a half before issuing a preliminary draft of the Emancipation Proclamation on Sept. 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln spent a quiet Saturday morning meeting with prominent abolitionist Rev. William Weston Patton. A few months earlier, at a June cabinet meeting, Lincoln had declared his intention to issue an edict of emancipation. But his worry over the Union’s military prospects, and the accompanying concern over seeming to act from a position of desperation, had so far prevented Lincoln from publishing any such edict. In the hopes of encouraging him in the right direction, Patton met with Lincoln to make the religious case for emancipation.
Patton concluded his remarks to the President by comparing him to Queen Esther. Drawing upon Chapter 4 in the Book of Esther, in which her cousin Mordechai exhorts Esther to seize the moment and exercise moral leadership, Patton beseeched Lincoln to recognize the wondrous opportunity presented to him by the Almighty to right an historic wrong: “[we] believe that in Divine Providence you have been called to the Presidency to speak the word of justice and authority which shall free the bondman and save the nation.” As Patton saw it, as soon as Esther was made aware of an injustice, she took action and damn the consequences. He felt Lincoln should do the same, assuring the president: “If the Leader will but utter a trumpet call, the nation will respond with patriotic ardor.”
In the end, it was Lincoln himself who best captured the nuances of the biblical Esther. In his response to Patton’s invocation of the biblical queen, Lincoln replied: “Whatever shall appear to be God’s will, I will do.” …
Read the entire article. On President’s Day, Abraham Lincoln remains one of the most honored to ever hold the office. At a time when the country was in turmoil and millions were kept in bondage, the Bible helped give Lincoln the encouragement to do what was right and stand up to injustice.
