War message found inside Lincoln's watch

I heard this on the radio this week. It just happens the my husband also told me about a picture that was found by one of Pres. Grant's descendents. It is a picture of the White House and some men are standing on the lawn, one of the men is taller than the others. They think this is probably Lincoln based on the date and the photographer.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/03/11/lincoln.photograph/

It's pretty strange that it was only after 150 years that they actually opened it even though they knew that something was in it! I wouldn't have taken the watchmaker's word for it - I'd have wanted a photo of the actual writing to display it alongside the watch in a museum.

I wonder what he said about "thank God we have a government". I don't quite understand the context so it sounds random to me.

Thanks for the response on my discussion!