The will of God prevails. No doubt, no doubt⁠— Yet, in great contests, each side claims to act In strict accordance with the will of God. Both may, one must be wrong. God could have saved This Union or destroyed it without war If He so wished. And yet this war began, And, once begun, goes on, though He could give Victory, at any time, to either side. It is unfathomable. Yet I know This, and this only. While I live and breathe, I mean to save the Union if I can, And by whatever means my hands can find Under the Constitution. If God reads The hearts of men as clearly as He must To be Himself, then He can read in mine And has, for twenty years, the old, scarred wish That the last slave should be forever free Here, in this country. I do not go back From that scarred wish and have not. But I put The Union, first and last, before the slave.