Lincoln on Democracy

"IF SLAVERY Is NOT WRONG,NOTHING Is WRONG"

316 LINCOLN ON DEMOCRACY "NEVER KNEW A MAN WHO WISHED TO BE ... A SLAVE" Fragment on Slavery [MARCH 22, 1864] Lincoln probably wrote this fragment as an extended autograph for an album scheduled to be sold for war charity. I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing, that no man desires for himself. March 22, 1864 A. LINCOLN "IF SLAVERY Is NOT WRONG, NOTHING Is WRONG" Letter to Albert G. Hodges [APRIL 4, 1864] Hodges, editor of a Frankfort, Kentucky, newspaper, visited the White House to warn that there was "much dissatisfaction" in the state over "the enlistmentofslaves as soldiers. " Evidently Lincoln's replypleased Hodges, because he later asked the President to write out a copy of what he had said. Hodges showed the letter to "prominent men" back home, and told Lincoln, "/ have met but one as yet who dissents from your reasoning . ... " Lincoln and Democracy, 1863-1865 317 A.G. Hodges, Esq Frankfort, Ky. My dear Sir: Executive Mansion, Washington, April 4, 1864. You ask me to put in writing the substance of what I verbally said the other day, in your presence, to Governor [Thomas E.] Bramlette and Senator [Archibald] Dixon. It was about as follows: "I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel. And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. It was in the oath I took that I would, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power. I understood, too, that in ordinary civil administration this oath even forbade me to practically indulge my primary abstract judgment on the moral question of slavery. I had publicly declared this many times, and in many ways. And I aver that, to this day, I have done no official act in mere deference to my abstract judgment and feeling on slavery. I 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 yet preserve the constitution? By general law life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the constitution, through the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it. I could not feel that, to the best ofmy ability, I had even tried to preserve the constitution, if, to save slavery, or any minor matter, I should permit the wreck ofgovernment, country and Constitution all together. When, early in the war, Gen. Fremont attempted military emancipation , I forbade it, because I did not then think it an indispensable necessity. When a little later, Gen. [Simon] Cameron, then Secretary of War, suggested the arming of the blacks, I objected, because I did 318 LINCOLN ON DEMOCRACY not yet think it an indispensable necessity. When, still later, Gen. [David] Hunter attempted military emancipation, I again forbade it, because I did not yet think the indispensable necessity had come. When, in March, and May, and July 1862 I made earnest, and successive appeals to the border states to favor compensated emancipation, I believed the indispensable necessity for military emancipation, and arming the blacks would come, unless averted by that measure. They declined the proposition; and I was, in my best judgment, driven to the alternative of either surrendering the Union, and with it, the Constitution , or of laying strong hand upon the colored element. I chose the latter. In choosing it, I hoped for greater gain than loss; but of this, I 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 in our white military force,-no...