The correct answer is the statement that reads: “Lincoln argues that the war is a punishment to both the North and South for allowing slavery to exist for so long, reminding the Northerners not to put all the blame on the South”. Near the end of the Civil War, Lincoln delivered his <em>Second Inaugural Address</em> (1865) and he argued that the conflict that was happening (Civil War) was an offence to God and <u>a “divine” punishment for the sin of slavery</u> that both the North and South have tolerated. In his speech, one can spot Lincoln’s argument when he says: “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?”.
*Lincoln argues that the war is a punishment to both the North and South for allowing slavery to exist for so long, reminding the Northerners not to put all the blame on the South*
