Select the correct text in the passage.
Which sentence in this excerpt from Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address conveys that he wanted the US Civil War to end as soon as
possible?
Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict
might cease with or even before the conflict itself
should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding
.
Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God
, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men
should dare
to
ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread
from the 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. "Woe unto the world
because of offenses
,
for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe
to that man by whom the offense cometh." 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."