Which sentence in this excerpt from abraham lincoln's second inaugural address shows that he believed the union was forced into war to ensure
that the country remained united?
on the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. all dreaded it-all sought to
avert it. while the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the union without war, insurgent agents were
in the city seeking to destroy it without war-seeking to dissolve the union, and divide effects, by negotiation. both parties deprecated war, but one
of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. and the war came
one eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the union, but localized in the southern part of it. these
slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. all knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. to strengthen, perpetuate, and
extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the union, even by war, while the government claimed no right to do more
than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. 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,
ible, 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