ensure
the integrity of the Union. In two years war has become an hourly
bitterness to me. I believe I suffer no less than any man. But it must
be endured. The cause was a right one two years ago. It is unchanged.

_Mrs. Otherly_: I know you are noble and generous. But I believe that
war must be wrong under any circumstances, for any cause.

_Mrs. Blow_: I'm afraid the President would have but little
encouragement if he listened often to this kind of talk.

_Lincoln_: I beg you not to harass yourself, madam. Ma'am, I too
believe war to be wrong. It is the weakness and the jealousy and the
folly of men that make a thing so wrong possible. But we are all weak,
and jealous, and foolish. That's how the world is, ma'am, and we
cannot outstrip the world. Some of the worst of us are sullen,
aggressive still--just clumsy, greedy pirates. Some of us have grown
out of that. But the best of us have an instinct to resist aggression
if it won't listen to persuasion. You may say it's a wrong instinct. I
don't know. But it's there, and it's there in millions of good men.
I don't believe it's a wrong instinct, I believe that the world must
come to wisdom slowly. It is for us who hate aggression to persuade
men always and earnestly against it, and hope that, little by little,
they will hear us. But in the mean time there will come moments when
the aggressors will force the instinct to resistance to act. Then we
must act earnestly, praying always in our courage that never again
will this thing happen. And then we must turn again, and again,
and again to persuasion. This appeal to force is the misdeed of an
imperfect world. But we are imperfect. We must strive to purify the
world, but we must not think ourselves pure above the world. When I
had this thing to decide, it would have been easy to say, "No, I will
have none of it; it is evil, and I will not touch it." But that would
have decided nothing, and I saw what I believed to be the truth as I
now put it to you, ma'am. It's a forlorn thing for any man to have
this responsibility in his heart. I may see wrongly, but that's how I
see.

_Mrs. Blow_: I quite agree with you, Mr. President. These brutes in
the South must be taught, though I doubt whether you can teach them
anything except by destroying them. That's what Goliath says.

_Lincoln_: Goliath must be getting quite an old man.

_Mrs. Blow_: Indeed, he's not, Mr. President Goliath is only
thirty-eight.

_Lincoln_: Really, n