(LE) Lincoln and Fatalism

As each of you begins to cast about for a subject to research for the course, here's an interesting example of one of the sorts of things that might make a worthy choice. Some scholars (e.g. Miller) treat Lincoln's dabbling with fatalism (the "doctrine of necessity") as a youthful conceit, abandoned in maturity. Others (e.g. Donald) see it as a secular articulation of a Protestant Christian predestinarianism, which was common in the teaching of the churches on the frontier. These latter scholars not only view it as characterizing Lincoln's nondenominational religious orientation, but find echoes of it in his periods of melancholy, most particularly when dealing with the horrors of the war years. It would be a fascinating matter to try to sort out which of these interpretations best accounts for the available evidence, along the way clarifying such complexities as how predestinarianism reconciles itself ideologically with hard work, responsibility, and progress (also prominent members of the frontier Protestant ethos).