The President Who Kept Pardoning His Own Assassin

In 1865, a Confederate sympathizer named Michael O'Laughlen was convicted of conspiring to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. But years earlier, Lincoln had already demonstrated the very pattern the psalmist describes in Psalm 78. Throughout the Civil War, Lincoln pardoned deserters and conspirators with a regularity that infuriated his generals. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton once stormed into Lincoln's office after learning the president had pardoned yet another soldier who had abandoned his post — only to return to the army begging forgiveness when capture seemed imminent. "Mr. President," Stanton protested, "you will destroy the discipline of the entire army."

Lincoln leaned back in his chair and said quietly, "If the Almighty gives people time for repentance, I suppose I can too."

The psalmist knew this cycle intimately. Israel sought God only when the sword was at their throat. Their repentance was shallow — flattery on their lips while their hearts wandered. Yet verse 38 delivers the stunning turn: "Yet He, being compassionate, forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them." The Most High restrained His anger again and again.

Lincoln's mercy cost him politically. God's mercy cost Him a cross. But here is the gospel buried in this ancient psalm — the Lord does not measure His compassion by the sincerity of our turning. He measures it by the depths of His own faithful heart. Even when our repentance is tinged with self-interest, the Holy One moves toward us, not away.