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"My PARAMOUNT OBJECT INTHIS STRUGGLE"
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Lincoln and Liberty, 1862-1863 "My PARAMOUNT OBJECT IN THIS STRUGGLE" Reply to Horace Greeley's "Prayer of Twenty Millions" [AUGUST 22, r862] 253 A New York Tribune editorial by its editor, Horace Greeley, had charged Lincoln with being "strangely and disastrously remiss" in not more aggressively pursuing emancipation. Although he had already determined to issue an Emancipation Proclamation-waiting onlyfor the right moment to make it public-Lincoln evidently saw in a response to the editorial a useful opportunity to nurture support for his forthcoming edict in terms of saving the Union, rather than of compassion. Hon. Horace Greely: Dear Sir Executive Mansion, Washington, August 22, 1862. I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not, now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right. As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave anyone in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the 254 LINCOLN ON DEMOCRACY Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free. Yours, A. LINCOLN "GOD WILLS THIS CONTEST" Meditation on the Divine Will [SEPTEMBER 2, 1862?] Lincoln neverjoined a church, but his son Willie's tragic death in February 1862 propelled him toward deeper thought about divine providence. He was careful not to claim that Godfavored the Union, as this fragment shows. Besides, he wrote it soon after the Second Battle of Bull Run, a major Union defeat. The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God can not beJor, and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is some- ...