By Geoffrey Biddulph
I was in Washington on business on Sept. 11, the second anniversary of the attacks against the United States by terrorists bent on the destruction of America and everything it stands for.
After I winded through all of the new security that has been set up around the Capitol, the Washington Monument and the White House, I finally made my way through the barricades in front of the Lincoln Memorial. I walked up the steps and re-read the two most famous speeches given by America’s 16th president.
The Gettysburg address is, of course, the more famous of the two. But the second inaugural address got me thinking. History is filled with patterns that are often repetitive. We are meant to learn from the past. And Lincoln, perhaps the country’s most thoughtful man, addresses one of the most difficult dilemmas of mankind.
You can read the second inaugural address here
Justification for War
The conundrum is one for all times: how can religious people, good people who are peaceable followers of Jesus Christ, justify acts of violence. Lincoln notes that the people in the South prayed to the same God and read the same Bible as the people in the North. He pointed out it is impossible for us to judge their hearts and he ends his speech with the famous phrase that we should have charity for all and malice for none.
But Lincoln also says that both sides could not win. Only one side could. And at the end of the day, one side’s cause was better than the other’s.
One side in the Civil War wanted to continue enslaving people and taking away their freedom. The other side wanted to liberate them. One side wanted to break up a country that had been unified by God for a great cause. The other side wanted to keep the country together. So, one cause was wrong and the other was right.
This does not mean that all of the people in the South were evil people. Far from it. Robert E. Lee, the great Southern general, was perhaps one of the most devout American leaders ever. He prayed sincerely and constantly to his Father in Heaven for guidance. He was an honorable and dignified man and one of America’s greatest military men ever. He was surrounded by literally tens of thousands of equally devout and honorable people in the South.
Meanwhile, there were many in the North who decried the massive bloodshed during the Civil War and called upon Lincoln to sue for peace with the South so that the carnage would end. These forces had stopped caring about the justness of the North’s cause. They were simply in favor of letting the South have independence if it so wished – so that the war would end and so that no more young men would die.
The candidate of the “peace Democrats” in the 1864 campaign was one of Lincoln’s generals, George B. McClellan. The military officer’s position on ending the war was so persuasive that in August, 1864 Lincoln began preparing his cabinet for the likelihood of a defeat. But, in the end, the hand of the Almighty intervened. Union forces began to wrack up victories, and the termination of the war appeared in sight. Lincoln was easily reelected.
But what if McClellan and the “peace Democrats” had won? The United States would have been divided in two, with one slave state and another free state. It is possible to imagine an even greater war later on, with even more bloodshed. At the very least, as Historian Mark E. Neely Jr. has noted, “the history of American racial relations might be a good deal more like South Africa’s.”
The 1864 presidential campaign teaches us that sometimes war is necessary to avoid even larger wars. Sometimes violence is necessary to eradicate a great evil.
The Evil We Face Today
America, Israel and the West are today faced with an evil even more terrible than the slavery that caused so much bloodshed 140 years ago. This evil is an ideology that justifies violence and bloodshed to bring anarchy and destruction. We should have no illusions about the ideology of our terrorist enemies: they will settle for nothing less than the complete destruction of the West and the triumph of their particularly totalitarian version of theocracy. They believe the Taliban’s version of Islam is the only acceptable system worldwide, and they believe this system will eventually triumph. Followers of this radical version of Islam are often called Islamists.
Are there individual Islamists who are good people, people with families, people who truly love God? Of course. But by fighting on the side of al Qaeda or other terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, they are simply on the wrong side, just as some Christians from the South were on the wrong side of history 140 years ago.
Just as President Lincoln 140 years ago faced increasing calls for surrender in the face of his enemy, today President George W. Bush faces mounting calls for abandoning Iraq, for ending the bloodshed. Most of the Democratic candidates now say the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. History is at a crucial juncture, just as it was in 1864. One side calls for peace at all costs. The other side says it must stay the course.
Wise students of history will choose the course that will bring less bloodshed in the long run. What kind of message will be sent to the terrorists by America abandoning Iraq? The obvious answer is that they will be ever more emboldened. They will continue to see the United States as a weak nation, ready for defeat. They will redouble their efforts to bury us at all costs.
A Book for Our Times
I am becoming more and more convinced that the Book of Mormon was written specifically for our times. In Alma chapters 43 and 44 we can read that the Nephites were in a situation very similar to ours in about 74 B.C.
The Lamanites were stirring up hatred against the Nephites so they could “gain power over the Nephites by bringing them into bondage.” (Alma 43:8) The Lamanites also were specifically opposed to the Nephites because of their Christ-centered religion (see Alma chapter 44 1-11).
In contrast, the Nephites were simply interested in living their lives peacefully and in worshipping God as they pleased: “The design of the Nephites was to support their lands, and their houses, and their wives, and their children, that they might preserve them from the hands of their enemies; and also that they might preserve their rights and their privileges, yea, and also their liberty, that they might worship God according to their desires. For they knew that if they should fall into the hands of the Lamanites, that whosoever should worship God in spirit and in truth, the true and living God, the Lamanites would destroy.” (Alma 43:9-10).
The Nephites had the good fortune of being led by Captain Moroni, one of the most righteous military leaders ever. Similar to U.S. forces today, the Nephites had a technological advantage because Moroni had prepared his people with “breastplates and with arm-shields” (Alma 43:19).
The Book of Mormon is not neutral on the Nephites at this point in history: “the Nephites were inspired by a better cause, for they were not fighting for monarchy or power but they were fighting for their homes and their liberties, their wives and their children, and.for their rites of worship and their church.” (Alma 43:45)
Attempts to negotiate a peace settlement with the Lamanites were fruitless. Even when the Lamanites were beaten, they insisted on continuing the battle (see Alma chapter 44).
Despite the Lamanites having twice as many troops as the Nephites, the Nephites won. Their victory, and subsequent battles, ushered in an age when the Lamanites were ready to hear the true word of God. Many of the Lamanites ended up joining the peaceful people of Ammon and were converted to the church. Soon before Christ came to the Americas, in fact, the Lamanites became more righteous than the Nephites.
And it all started because of the necessary battles that had taken place earlier.
Just like the Nephites of old, America today is under attack from a relentless enemy with whom there is no negotiation. The terrorists’ only demands are that we simply give up and abandon our religion and our homes and let ourselves be dominated by their extreme version of Islam. The terrorists of today have many of the same desires for power and world domination as the Lamanites of yesterday.
So, what is the solution? We must continue to battle against the terrorists until they are defeated. We must hold out a hand of friendship to all people who reject the extremist ideology of the Islamists. We must hope that after they are defeated the people who today support the terrorists will have their hearts changed and softened.
The last 70 years has seen the United States and its allies defeat two Gadianton-like enemies. The first was fascism and the second was communism. Despite their different economic policies, the goals of both of these enemies were the same: worldwide domination. The new terrorist enemies are simply offering more of the same. Here too the Book of Mormon is clear that the names of the enemies may change (Lamanites, Gadianton robbers, kingmen), but their goals are always the same: power, secret combinations and financial gain.
Abraham Lincoln was steadfast against his enemy, and history has proven he was in the right. The greatest American presidents of the 20th century were also those who recognize the evil ideologies arrayed against them and took the steps to defeat these ideologies. Now is not the time to give up.
2003Meridian Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
