Abraham Lincoln | Page 5

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
of my ability I had even tried to preserve the Constitution, if, to save
slavery, or any minor matter, I should permit the wreck of government,
country, and Constitution altogether. When, early in the war, General
Fremont attempted military emancipation, I forbade it, because I did
not then think it an indispensable necessity. When, a little later, General
Cameron, then Secretary of War, suggested the arming of the blacks, I
objected, because I did not yet think it an indispensable necessity.
When, still later, General Hunter attempted military emancipation, I

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 loss by it
anyhow or anywhere. On the contrary, it shows a gain of quite a
hundred and thirty thousand soldiers, seamen, and laborers. These are
palpable facts, about which, as facts, there can be no caviling. We have
the men; and we could not have had them without the measure.
"And now let any Union man who complains 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 three
[one?] hundred and thirty thousand men from the Union side, and
placing them where they would be but for the measure he condemns. If
he cannot face his case so stated, it is only because he cannot face the
truth.
"I add a word which was not in the verbal conversation. In telling this
tale, I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity. I claim not to have
controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.
Now, at the end of three years' struggle, the nation's condition is not
what either party or any man desired or expected. God alone can claim
it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a
great wrong, and wills also that we of the North, as well as you of the
South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial
history will find therein new causes to attest and revere the justice and
goodness of God.
"Yours truly,

A. Lincoln."

He struck slavery because slavery had clutched the throat of the
Republic, and one of the twain must die! Mr. Lincoln said, LET IT BE
SLAVERY!
Christianity, declaring the brotherhood of race, redemption and
retribution answered, So be it! The Bible, sealed by slave-codes to four
millions for whom its truths were designed, answered Amen! The
gospel long fettered by the slave-master's will, and instead of an
evangel of freedom made to proclaim a message of bondage, lifted up
its voice in thanksgiving. Marriage, long dishonored, put on its robes of
purity, and its ring of perpetual covenant, and answered Amen, and
from above, God's strong angels and six-winged cherubim, bending
earthward, shouted their response to the edict of the Great
Emancipator!
IV. The next controlling idea was
PROFOUND RELIGIOUS DEPENDENCE.
As a public man, he set God before his eyes, and did reverence to the
Most High. It was deeply a touching scene as he stood upon the
platform of the car which was to carry him from his Springfield home,
and tearfully asked his neighbors and old friends that they should
remember him in their prayers. Amid tears and