Abraham Lincoln | Page 4

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 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