The Lives of Job and Lincoln: Duty, Commitment, and Perseverance

Forward: I thought I would make the most out of throwback Thursday. This essay was my first college term paper, which was written in November 2013 while I was a Freshman at New Mexico Military Institute. My hope is that my writing might inspire others to change their social media habits, as well as foster genuine reflection as independence day aproaches. Feedback is always welcome, but not expected. #TheologianThursday

In the year 1860, the United States of America went through an internal schism: Civil War, the bloodiest war in American history. Abraham Lincoln was the commander in chief. The North and South expected the Civil War to be a series of small skirmishes, but the end of 1861 had destroyed all such illusions. Arguably, no president has ever faced such a herculean task as Lincoln faced in trying to win the war and bring the South back into the Union. Savage but inconclusive battles, such as First Bull Run, only served to demonstrate that the war was going to be gruesome and difficult. As not only the leader of America’s democracy, but a champion of all democracy, Lincoln faced insurmountable pressure. If he were to have only dealt with the splintering Union, his task would have still have been intensely difficult. However, Lincoln’s personal trials were themselves a burden few men could have borne. The president’s immense personal struggles could be compared to those of Job, the figure in Judeo-Christian literature who was repeatedly permitted to suffer by G-d, with no apparent purpose. Like Job, Lincoln opposed a series of losses that made him question what higher power could possibly be at work.

Abe Lincoln faced the death of his son at the same time as he had the socio-political task of reuniting his sundered nation. Lincoln surmounted the challenge and persevered by surrendering himself to a higher power. Like Job, the president had to realize that it is not a mortal’s duty to understand why suffering can become so overbearing, but only to fulfill one’s obligations to the best of his ability. Lincoln believed, as did most pro-Union citizens, that the Civil War would be a short decisive war, but after the battle of First Bull Run (and later Shiloh), the Lincoln administration realized the war would be long and arduous. Adding to the troubles of the Civil War, Lincoln was forced to confront the loss of his son, and deal with a wife who may well have been mad. The similarities between the story of Job and the historical story of Lincoln’s life are striking. Like Job, the melancholic president lost half of his children, but that was far from his only source of personal grief. The wartime challenges continued unremittingly, and he never attempted to shield himself from the consequences of his decisions, as he demonstrated by his daily visits to the telegraph office to check the death tolls (Toland). Both Job and the president went through a phase of grief where they questioned why a higher power had punished them for apparently no reason; Job erupts in a singular fit of agony (Chapter 3), but Lincoln suffers instead many small outcries that accumulated to an overall breakdown of the self. The ultimate surrender to the call of duty solaced these men in their tasks.

The nationwide outbreak of violence, climaxing in the trauma of First Bull Run, demonstrated just how daunting the President Lincoln’s challenge was. The Battle of First Bull Run occurred on July 21, 1861. Lincoln, along with most of the rest of the Union, believed the war should have ended with a Northern victory at the battle, which would have cleared the way to capture the Confederate capital, Richmond. Instead, the North met a humiliating defeat. That initial failure convinced Lincoln the war would be a damaging business that would require all his strength. As the year 1861 continued, a failure to make strategic progress made clear that the North was in dire need of an effective plan to combat the Southern forces. Whereas the South could hope to win by merely outlasting the Northern will to fight, the North would have to win outright to conquer the South. The emotionally demanding challenges drained the president. As 1861 ended, Lincoln was already battling a quotidian inner depression.

The death of Willie Lincoln, from reoccurring typhoid fever, on February 20, 1862 at 5 p.m., was the single most tragic event in Lincoln’s life. Upon seeing the cold pale face of his dead son, Lincoln “[…] buried his head in his hands, and his tall frame was convulsed with emotion” (Goodwin 419). This emotional display revealed the broken heart underneath his strong discipline. Although Lincoln appeared to put up a strong front while in the workplace, he was stricken by this loss. Goodwin remarks, “Outwardly the president appeared to cope with Willie’s death better than his wife. He had important work to engage him every hour of the day […] yet, despite his relentless duties, he suffered an excruciating sense of loss” (422). The President’s inward battle with depression only seemed to worsen with the death of his son. On top of Lincoln’s own grief, his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, had hysterical breakdowns that worsened matters in the White House and made Lincoln’s attempts to deal with his own grief ineffective. As Goodwin accounts, “The pale face of her dead boy threw her into convulsions” (419). Mrs. Lincoln, another inescapable challenge, added to Lincoln’s incredible distress. Even prior to their family tragedy, Mary was a hellion who vexed and harassed her husband verbally, mentally and physically. Reports by Hillary Gobin, a neighbor, confirmed, “[They] were very unhappy in their domestic life, and she was frequently to drive him from the house with a broomstick” (Burlingame 277). Even in the comfort of his own home, Lincoln was never at ease. There was no solace in his marriage, only strife. These distractions made it almost impossible for the president to have any personal space to come to terms with his emotional challenges. Lincoln never received adequate grieving time, so he was tempted to betray his duty by facing the Civil War without his full attention.

Not long after the death of his son, the president was forced to handle some of the most devastating battles the North endured. The Battle of Shiloh curtailed a series of Union victories at places like Pea Ridge, Fort Henry and Fort Daniels (civilwar.org), and showed just how passionately the Confederate forces would fight. Allen C. Guelzo argues:

[…]the pushing of two-day battle at Shiloh was waged with unprecedented ferocity and at the cost of killed and wounded on both sides — some 20,000 — whose sheer numbers illustrated the folly of imagining that Southerners had any inclination toward unionism and restoration. (Redeemer President 335)

No prior President had ever faced an enemy so completely motivated to fight until death. Lincoln had begun to realize that some providence had placed the weight of 20,000 deaths squarely on his shoulders in a single week. In “Meditation on the Divine Will”, Lincoln reflects on the war, “He [G-d] could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. […] Yet the contest proceeds” (Basler). Martial stresses began to bleed into Lincoln’s personal life, further exaggerating the impact of the lost son. Just as his personal life offered no respite from the war, the war was to offer him no reprieve from his grief.

Like Lincoln, Job also faced excruciatingly painful circumstances. Lincoln’s and Job’s lives are analogous of each other in their seemingly endless misfortune. Job’s story consists of five scenes, switching between the land of Uz and heaven. The Almighty is heard boasting of his most faithful servant (Job) to the adversary (Satan), a prosecuting angel in G-d’s divine court. In response, Satan scathingly suggests that, the question if G-d were to, “put forth Your hand and touch whatever he [Job] owns, [Job] will surely curse You to Your face!” (Job 1–2:10). The Lord was intrigued by the angel’s challenge, and permitted the angel to subject Job to a series of trials. Job endures multiple instances of divinely caused physical and emotional torture. On three separate occasions, Job’s servants inform him that tragedy has struck. The tragedies occur in rapid-fire sequence, ending with the loss of his children:

While he was speaking another came and said, “ Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking in the home of their oldest brother. Suddenly, a mighty wind came across the desert, and it struck the four corners of the house. It fell upon the young people, and they died. And I alone have escaped to tell you.” (Job 1–2:10)

Job instantly breaks into prayer, accepting that G-d gives and G-d takes. It is not until the third chapter when Job laments, but he never verbally curses G-d. Instead, he asks G-d to meet him in court and asks, “What have I done to you?” (Kushner 60). Eventually, G-d speaks directly to Job, and explains to him that he cannot fathom the acts of G-d. Each example has a parallel during the life of Abe Lincoln.

The trials that Abraham Lincoln faced are akin to Job’s odyssey. Both Lincoln and Job were religious men. Lincoln often referred to his higher power as “an all-wise Providence” that “[…] determines the destinies of nations” (Guelzo A Man of Ideas 28). Lincoln’s diction suggests that, while he may not have been closely affiliated with a single religion, he still believed in a divine being manipulating the dialectic discourse of history. In the biblical context, a G-d clearly exists, and has influence over the mortal realm, whether G-d is always within that realm remains uncertain. The loss of Willie bore deeply into the psyche of Lincoln, and the question of who bore responsibility for that loss, could never have been far from his mind. Guelzo remarks, “Lincoln’s personal tragedies bore the stamp of providence that he could not comfortably dismiss as mere inevitability, or easily accept as comfort” (Redeemer President 329). Lincoln’s tragedies were not mere coincidence. “Providence” guided him toward the freeing of the slaves and holding the shattering Union together. In the ancient tale, the first and third disasters are man-made, while the second and fourth are natural catastrophes. Gordis’s commentary of the Book of Job argues that the story of Job subtly suggests that all events, whatever their immediate cause, begin with the will of G-d (2). Similarly, Lincoln’s greatest challenges were the Civil War, a manmade slaughter, and the loss of his son, a natural disaster. Lincoln knew all things — good and bad — had their roots in Providence. Although neither man ever cursed G-d, both questioned divine motivation, struggling to apply their reason to that which was unknowable. Job handled his grief by asking G-d to put him on trial for his supposed sins, while Lincoln suffered a prolonged melancholy.

Grief played a pivotal role in building the characters of Lincoln and Job. Each man fell into extreme depression. In an emotional outburst, Lincoln cried out, “This is the hardest trial of my life […] Why is? Oh why is it?” (Goodwin 420). The only response Lincoln ever received was the onslaught of additional pain, affecting him so greatly that he was ready to hang himself (Burlingame 105). The president did his best to handle the grief, but Lincoln’s reality rivaled a living hell. Like Lincoln, Job, the man being tested by G-d, finally cracked under stress and lamented. He cried out to the heavens, “O that the day upon which I was to be born might never have been” (Job 3:2). Through the trials, Job begins to lose his trust in a higher power. His grief pushed him to satisfy his reason that what he suffered had meaning, but the struggle to understand only added to his torments. Sherman argues, “Job will not, indeed cannot, blaspheme against G-d. But how he wishes, impotently and uselessly — out of utter weariness and confusion of his tortured mind –that the day of his birth could be excised from history” (31). Both men were pushed to their limits, but, remarkably, each rose from the depths of depression to accomplish feats that no average man could handle, and achieve a deeper understanding of the Lord’s true power.

When these men made the ultimate decision to surrender to his higher duty, both found solace in fulfilling their obligations. Lincoln even seems to have taken strength from his personal challenges. Os Guinness claims, “Lincoln’s was the kind of mind that did not reach its true magnitude except in experiences of sorrow and of strain” (109). Without Lincoln’s dark depression, the shining beacon of hope and democracy would have failed. Lincoln realized that to win the war he must put himself second to the distressed nation. After the great defeat at Second Bull Run, the president noted that, “personal considerations must be sacrificed for the public good” (Redeemer President 307). Despite all of the tragedies, Lincoln, the ever-modest man, served his country gratefully: “I shall be most happy indeed if I shall be a humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty, and of his almost chosen people, for perpetuating the object of great struggle” (Guinness 110). Job desperately desired the Lord to put him on trial, which was fundamentally the same urge that the commander in chief felt during his period of onerous duties. Lincoln needed to achieve victory on the battlefield to prove goodness was not powerless even in the face of suffering and evil.

Lincoln converted his intensely personal grief and depression into an impetus that better served his country and all of humanity. The sincere love that both Lincoln and Job held for their children directly translated to the duty each man had to a higher power. The duty to the dead is eternal; to honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice — curling up and dying when faced with challenges to the mortal realm is unacceptable. Lincoln persevered, and rose to meet both his personal challenges and the challenges of the war, this showed character. Few men can successfully fulfill the obligations of commander in chief in a time of war; even fewer could rise to the challenges our greatest president faced. Lincoln’s life is empirical evidence of the story of Job, which teaches duty, commitment, and perseverance. Just as Job calls out to G-d for guidance, Lincoln follows the unseen hand of Providence to persevere through an earthly hell.

Works Cited

Basler, Roy P. “Abraham Lincoln’s Meditation on the Divine Will.” Abraham Lincoln’s

Meditation on the Divine Will. Abraham Lincoln Online, n.d. Web. 05 Nov. 2013.

<http://abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/meditat.htm>.

“Bull Run.” Council on Foreign Relations. Council on Foreign Relations, n.d. Web. 25 Oct.

2013. <http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/bullrun.html?tab=facts>.

Burlingame, Michael. The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1994. Print.

Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005. Print.

Gordis, Robert. The Book of Job: Commentary, New Translation, and Special Studies. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1978. Print.

Guelzo, Allen C. Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1999. Print.

Guelzo, Allen C., and Michael Lind. Abraham Lincoln as a Man of Ideas. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2009. Print.

Guinness, Os. Character Counts: Leadership Qualities in Washington, Wilberforce, Lincoln, and Solzhenitsyn. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1999. Print.

Kushner, Harold S. The Book of Job When Bad Things Happen to a Good Person. New York: Nextbook, 2012. Print.

Toland, Lewis. “Lincoln” New Mexico Military Institute. Lea Hall, Roswell. 9 Sept. 2013. Classroom Lecture.