...was not in the verbal conversation. In telling this tale I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity. I claim not to have controlled events, but confess...of three years' struggle, the nation's condition is Tiot what either party, or any man, devised or expected. God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending...

...they are within his reach. Said Abraham Lincoln, " I claim not to have controlled events, but confess that events have controlled me. Now at the end of...nation's condition is not what either party or any man desired or expected." There spoke not the dignified statesman of the academic tradition who moulds...

...any clear plan for preventing the outbreak of civil war. Moreover, Lincoln's much quoted remark— "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me"— is cited by Donald as evidence of "the essential passivity of his nature."3 When Lincoln uttered those...

...also pp. 227, 333). Abraham Lincoln, generally regarded as the greatest of American presidents, said, "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me" (Nicolay and Whinery 1911:709). Andrew Jackson, another American president of great stature, in words...

...explained, only as it became an "indispensable necessity" for winning the war and saving the Union. "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me." 2 During the final year of his life, influenced by events and also influencing them, he devoted himself...

...about forcibly reforming these bonds. Many commentators point to Lincoln's famous observation that "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me."57 While this is certainly a true confession in part, we should not exaggerate it to the detriment...

...would work God's will "in God's own good time.""7 Of his Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln wrote, "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.""8 And it was not because of any great virtue that the North would free the slaves. "God," he said...

...discovered a reason for the war's long duration. In a letter to a Kentuckian in April 1864 he observed, "Now, at the end of three years struggle the nation's...man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it. Wither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that...

...unilaterally, he might have prevailed. The concluding lines in the caption summarize the argument: "'I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.' Abraham Lincoln — or in other words, 'I have neither exercised my judgment, conscience, or humanity...

...on a flatboat, just like any poor man's son." He knew who he was, and who he could be— under God. I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. What he had lived his life to say, only the dead at Gettysburg had given him the right to say, and...