Executive Mansion,
Washington, August 26, 1863.
Hon. James C. Conkling:
My dear Sir: Your letter inviting me to attend a mass-meeting of
unconditional Union men, to be held at the capital of Illinois on the
3d day of September, has been received. It would be very agreeable to
me to thus meet my old friends at my own home; but I cannot just now be
absent from here so long as a visit there would require.
The meeting is to be of all those who maintain unconditional devotion
to the Union; and I am sure my old political friends will thank me for
tendering, as I do, the nation's gratitude to those and other noble men
whom no partizan malice or partizan hope can make false to the nation's
life.
There are those who are dissatisfied with me. To such I would say: You
desire peace, and you blame me that we do not have it. But how can we
attain it? There are but three conceivable ways: First, to suppress
the rebellion by force of arms. This I am trying to do. Are you for
it? If you are, so far we are agreed. If you are not for it, a second
way is to give up the Union. I am against this. Are you for it? If
you are, you should say so plainly. If you are not for force, nor yet
for dissolution, there only remains some imaginable compromise. I do
not believe that any compromise embracing the maintenance of the Union
is now possible. All I learn leads to a directly opposite belief. The
strength of the rebellion is its military, its army. That army
dominates all the country and all the people within its range. Any
offer of terms made by any man or men within that range, in opposition
to that army, is simply nothing for the present, because such man or
men have no power whatever to enforce their side of a compromise, if
one were made with them.
To illustrate: Suppose refugees from the South and peace men of the
North get together in convention, and frame and proclaim a compromise
embracing a restoration of the Union. In what way can that compromise
be used to keep Lee's army out of Pennsylvania? Meade's army can keep
Lee's army out of Pennsylvania, and, I think, can ultimately drive it
out of existence. But no paper compromise to which the controllers of
Lee's army are not agreed can at all affect that army. In an effort at
such compromise we should waste time which the enemy would improve to
our disadvantage; and that would be all. A compromise, to be
effective, must be made either with those who control the rebel army,
or with the people first liberated from the domination of that army by
the success of our own army. Now, allow me to assure you that no word
or intimation from that rebel army, or from any of the men controlling
it, in relation to any peace compromise, has ever come to my knowledge
or belief. All charges and insinuations to the contrary are deceptive
and groundless. And I promise you that if any such proposition shall
hereafter come, it shall not be rejected and kept a secret from you. I
freely acknowledge myself the servant of the people, according to the
bond of service,--the United States Constitution,--and that, as such, I
am responsible to them.
But to be plain. You are dissatisfied with me about the negro. Quite
likely there is a difference of opinion between you and myself upon
that subject. I certainly wish that all men could be free, while I
suppose you do not. Yet I have neither adopted nor proposed any
measure which is not consistent with even your views, provided you are
for the Union. I suggested compensated emancipation, to which you
replied you wished not to be taxed to buy negroes. But I had not asked
you to be taxed to buy negroes, except in such way as to save you from
greater taxation to save the Union exclusively by other means.
You dislike the Emancipation Proclamation, and perhaps would have it
retracted. You say it is unconstitutional. I think differently. I
think the Constitution invests its commander-in-chief with the law of
war in time of war. The most that can be said--if so much--is, that
slaves are property. Is there, has there ever been, any question that,
by the law of war, property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken
when needed? And is it not needed whenever taking it helps us or hurts
the enemy? Armies, the world over, destroy enemies' property when they
cannot use it, and even destroy their own to keep it from the enemy.
Civilized belligerents do all in their power to help themselves or hurt
the enemy, except a few things regarded as barbarous or cruel. Among
the exceptions are the massacre of vanquished foes and non-combatants,
male and female.
But the Proclamation, as law, either is valid or is not valid. If it
is not valid, it needs no retraction. If it is valid, it cannot be
retracted any more than the dead can be brought to life. Some of you
profess to think its retraction would operate favorably for the Union.
Why better after the retraction than before the issue? There was more
than a year and a half of trial to suppress the rebellion before the
Proclamation issued, the last one hundred days of which passed under an
explicit notice that it was coming, unless averted by those in revolt
returning to their allegiance. The war has certainly progressed as
favorably for us since the issue of the Proclamation as before.
I know, as fully as one can know the opinions of others, that some of
the commanders of our armies in the field who have given us our most
important successes, believe the emancipation policy and the use of
colored troops constitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebellion,
and that at least one of these important successes could not have been
achieved when it was but for the aid of black soldiers. Among the
commanders holding these views are some who have never had any affinity
with what is called "Abolitionism," or with "Republican party
politics," but who hold them purely as military opinions. I submit
their opinions as being entitled to some weight against the objections
often urged that emancipation and arming the blacks are unwise as
military measures, and were not adopted as such in good faith.
You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing
to fight for you; but no matter. Fight you, then, exclusively, to save
the Union. I issued the Proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving
the Union. Whenever you shall have conquered all resistance to the
Union, if I shall urge you to continue fighting, it will be an apt time
then for you to declare you will not fight to free negroes.
I thought that in your struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the
negroes should cease helping the enemy, to that extent it weakened the
enemy in his resistance to you. Do you think differently? I thought
that whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers, leaves just so much
less for white soldiers to do in saving the Union. Does it appear
otherwise to you? But negroes, like other people, act upon motives.
Why should they do anything for us if we will do nothing for them? If
they stake their lives for us they must be prompted by the strongest
motive, even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must
be kept.
The signs look better. The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the
sea. Thanks to the great Northwest for it. Nor yet wholly to them.
Three hundred miles up they met New England, Empire, Keystone, and
Jersey, hewing their way right and left. The sunny South, too, in more
colors than one, also lent a hand. On the spot, their part of the
history was jotted down in black and white. The job was a great
national one, and let none be banned who bore an honorable part in it.
And while those who have cleared the great river may well be proud,
even that is not all. It is hard to say that anything has been more
bravely and well done than at Antietam, Murfreesboro, Gettysburg, and
on many fields of lesser note. Nor must Uncle Sam's webfeet be
forgotten. At all the watery margins they have been present. Not only
on the deep sea, the broad bay, and the rapid river, but also up the
narrow, muddy bayou, and wherever the ground was a little damp, they
have been and made their tracks. Thanks to all,--for the great
Republic, for the principle it lives by and keeps alive, for man's vast
future,--thanks to all.
Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon,
and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future
time. It will then have been proved that among freemen there can be no
successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they who take
such appeal are sure to lose their case and pay the cost. And then
there will be some black men who can remember that with silent tongue,
and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have
helped mankind on to this great consummation, while I fear there will
be some white ones unable to forget that with malignant heart and
deceitful speech they strove to hinder it.
Still, let us not be over-sanguine of a speedy, final triumph. Let us
be quite sober. Let us diligently apply the means, never doubting that
a just God, in His own good time, will give us the rightful result.
Yours very truly,