Abraham Lincoln | Page 4

bless the lowest as well as the highest. It was
not right and never could be made right, to forbid working lawfully that
all men might be free. Slavery debased--freedom lifted up. Slavery
corrupted, freedom purified. Freedom might be abused, but slavery was
itself a colossal abuse.
He was no dreaming visionary, but stated with commanding clearness
the doctrine of equality before the law, or political equality,
distinguishing it from social equality. In old Independence Hall, in
1861, he said of the Colonies: "I have often enquired of myself what
great principle or idea it was that kept this confederacy so long together.
It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the
mother land, but the sentiment in the Declaration of Independence
which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but I hope to
the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due
time the weight should be lifted from the shoulders of all men." He held
that instrument to teach that "nothing stamped with the Divine image
and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, degraded and
imbruted by its fellows."
We search vainly for a clearer and terser statement of the true theory of
equality than he gave last autumn in an address to a Western regiment.
"We have, as all will agree, a free government, where every man has a

right to be equal with every other man." Has a right to be! Take the
fetters from his limbs, take the load of disability from his shoulders,
give him room in the arena, and then if he cannot succeed with others,
the failure is his. But he has the right TO TRY. You have no right to
forbid the trial. If he will try for wealth, fame, political position, he has
the right. Let him exercise it and enjoy what he lawfully wins.
With such views he came to the presidency. Here he was an executive
officer, bound by the Constitution, and charged with its maintenance
and defense. He was to take the nation as the people placed it in his
hands, rule it under the Constitution and surrender it unbroken to his
successor. Accordingly he made to the Southern States all conceivable
propositions for peace. Slavery should be left without federal
interference. They madly rejected all. War came. He saw at the outset
that slavery was our bane. It confronted each regiment, perplexed each
commander. It was the Southern commisariat, dug Southern trenches
and piled Southern breastworks.
But certain Border States maintained a quasi loyalty and clung to
slavery. They were in sympathy with rebellion, but wore the semblance
of allegiance and with consequential airs assumed to dictate the policy
of the President. He was greatly embarrassed. He made them every
kind and conciliatory offer, but all was refused. Slavery on the gulf and
on the border, in Charleston and in Louisville, was the same intolerant,
incurable enemy of the Union. He struck it at last. The Proclamation of
Emancipation came, followed in due time by the recommendation that
the Constitution be so amended as forever to render slavery impossible
in State or Territory. For these acts, he was arraigned before the
American people on the 8th of last November, and received their
emphatic approval.
In a letter written to a citizen of Kentucky, the President gave an
exposition of his policy so transparent, that I reproduce it in this place.
It is his sufficient explanation and vindication.

Executive Mansion, Washington, April 4, 1864.

A. G. Hodges, Esq., Frankfort, Ky.
"My Dear Sir:--You ask me to put in writing the substance of what I
verbally stated the other day, in your presence, to Governor Bramlette
and Senator Dixon. It was about as follows:
"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong nothing is wrong. I
cannot 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 in 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 in my view that I might take the 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