Should a rhetorical question end with a question mark?

In Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, William Safire notes, he posed this question: "If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the provence 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 devine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him?"

In the manuscript in Lincoln's handwriting in the Library of Congress, the question mark appears. But on the marble wall of the Lincoln Memorial, the sentence ends with a period. A Virginian lawyer has been petitioning the National Park Service to change it to the way Lincoln wrote it.

What do you think? Should there be a question mark? Do you use periods with rhetorical questions?

[BTW, note Lincoln's spelling of "offences," as our British friends spell it. I wonder when the spelling changed...and why.]

quote:

Should a rhetorical question end with a question mark?

Is that a rhetorical question? The answer is yes.

On the spelling issue, Noah Webster published his spelling reforms in his 1828 An American Dictionary of the English Language. Lincoln was born in 1809, so he'd have learnt to spell before the publication of the dictionary.

I almost hate to say this because Lincoln was so accomplished, but I found the sentence rather confusing, to say the least.

Arnie, regarding the spelling of "offense," in England does it depend on the definition of "offense" as to whether or not it has an "s" or a "c?" Lincoln's first "offence" was meant as a "violation," whereas the second "offense" perhaps was meant as an "attack?" I am not sure, but otherwise why would the spelling of the same word be different?

I hadn't noticed that he'd spelt the word two different ways. Here, we'd spell both usages the same: offence.

I understand that Lincoln didn't have the best of educations. Maybe spelling wasn't his strong point? Perhaps the influence of Noah Webster had a belated effect on his writing?