The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1864-05-05
EXECUTIVE MANSION,

ASHlNGTON April 4, 1864.
H. G. Hodges, Esq, FranhJort, Ky:
My DEAR SIR:-You ask me to put in wri-
ting the substance of what verbally said the
other day in your presence, to Governor
Bramlette and Senator Dixon. 1t was about
as follows:
l am naturally anti-sIavery If slavery
is not wrong, nothing is wrong. / cannot
remember when | did not so think and feel.
And yet l have never understood that the
Presidency conferred upon me an unrestrict-
ed right to act officially upon this judgment
and feeling 1t was in the oath took, that
L would to the best of my ability, preserve,
protect and defend the Constitution of the
United States | could not take the office
without taking the oath. Nor was it my
view that Knight take an oath to get power,
and break the oath in using the power.
understand, too, that in ordinary civil adj
ministration this oath even forbade me to
practically indulge in primary, abstract judg-
ment on the moral question of slavery.
had publicly declared this many times, and
in many ways. And | aver that, to this day
| have done no official act in mere Difference
to my abstract Judgment and feeling on
slavery.
| did understand, however, that my oath
to preserve the Constitution to the best of
my ability, imposed upon me the duty of
preserving, by every indispensable means,
that Government-that nation, of which
that Constitution was the organic law. Was
it possible to lose the nation, and vet pre-
serve the Constitution?
BY general law, life and limb must be
protected yet often limb must be ampu-
tated to save life, but a life is never wisely
given to save limb. I felt that measure
otherwise unconstitutional, might become
lawful, by becoming indispensable to the
preservation Of the Constitution, through the
preservation of the nation. Right or wrong
[ assumed this ground, and now | avow it.
could not feel, that to the best of my
ability had even tried to preserve the con-
stitution, il, to save slavery, or any minor
matter, should permit the wreck of the Gov
ernment country and Constitution, alto
gether
When, early in the war, Gen. Fremnot at
tempted military emancipation, forbade it,
because did not then think it an indispens-
able necessity. When, little later, Gen.
Cameron, then Secretary of War, suggested
the arming Of the blacks, objected; because
| did not yet think it an indispensable ne
cessity. When still later, Gen. Hunter at
tempted military emancipation, I again for
babe it; because | did not yet think the in
despensahle necessity had come.
When, in March, and May, and July, 1862
made earnest and successive appeals to the
border States to favor compensated emanci-
patton, believed the indispensable necesi-
ty for military emancipation, and arming
the blacks would come, unless averted BY
that measure. They declined the PROPOSE
ton; and | was, in my best judgment
driven to the alternative, of either surrend-
ering the Union, and with it the Constitu-
ton, or Of laying strong hands upon the col
ored clement. | chose the latter. In choos-
ing it, hoped for greater gain than loss;
but OF this was not entirely confident
More than a year Of trial now shows no loss
by it, in our foreign relations; none in our
home popular sentiment, none III our white
force-no loss by it, any how or any where.
On the contrary, it shows a gain Of quite
1870, 600 soldiers, seaneu and laborers These
are palable facts, about which, as facts, there
can be no caviling, We have the men, and
we could not have had them without the
And now, let any Union man, who COM
plains of the measure, test himself by writing
down in one line, that he is for subduing the
rebellion by force of arms, and in the next
that he is for taking these $50, 0OOmen from
the Union side, and placing them where they
would be bnt for the measure he condemns.
If he can not face his cause so stated, it is
because he can not face the trnth.
l add word, which was not in the verbal
In telling this tale, attempt
no compliment to my own sagacity. [ claim
not to have controlled events, but confess
plainly that events have controlled me. Now
at the end of three years struggle, the ma
ions condition is not what either party or
my man devised or expected. God alone can
claim it. Whittier it is tending seems plain. |
# God now wills the removal of a great
wrong, and wills also that we of the North,
Is well as you of the South, shall pay fairly
or our completely in that wrong, impartial
history will find therein new causes to attest
md revere the justice and goodness of God.
Yours truly, A. LINCOLN.