freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free,--honourable alike
in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose
the last, best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not
fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just,--a way which, if
followed, the world will for ever applaud, and God must for ever bless.
_Emancipation Proclamation. January 1, 1863_
Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord
one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by
the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the
following, to wit:
"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand
eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any
State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be
in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward,
and for ever free; and the Executive Government of the United States,
including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and
maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to
repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for
their actual freedom.
"That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by
proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which
the people thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion against the
United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall
on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United
States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the
qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall in the
absence of strong countervailing testimony be deemed conclusive evidence
that such State and the people thereof are not then in rebellion against
the United States."
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by
virtue of the power in me vested as commander-in-chief of the army and
navy of the United States, in time of actual armed rebellion against the
authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and
necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first
day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly
proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the day first
above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States
wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion
against the United States, the following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard,
Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension,
Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans,
including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida,
Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the
forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties
of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne,
and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which
excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this
proclamation were not issued.
And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and
declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States
and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the
Executive Government of the United States, including the military and
naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of
said persons.
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain
from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to
them that, in all cases when allowed, they labour faithfully for
reasonable wages.
And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable
condition will be received into the armed service of the United States
to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man
vessels of all sorts in said service.
And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted
by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate
judgment of mankind and the gracious favour of Almighty God.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed.
[Sidenote: L.S.]
Done at the city of Washington, this first day of January, in the year
of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the
independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
Secretary of State.
_Letter to General Grant. July 13, 1863_
My dear General, I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I
write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable
service you have done the country. I wish to say a word further. When
you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do
what you finally did--march the troops across the neck, run the
batteries with the transports, and thus go below; and I never had any
faith, except a general hope that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo
Pass expedition and the like could succeed. When you got below and took
Port Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go down the
river and join General Banks, and when you turned northward, east of the
Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the personal
acknowledgment that you were right and I was wrong.
Yours very truly,
A. LINCOLN.
_Letter to ---- Moulton. Washington. July 31, 1863_
My dear Sir, There has been a good deal of complaint against you by your
superior officers of the Provost-Marshal-General's Department, and your
removal has been strongly urged on the ground of "persistent
disobedience of orders and neglect of duty." Firmly convinced, as I am,
of the patriotism of your motives, I am unwilling to do anything in your
case which may seem unnecessarily harsh or at variance with the feelings
of personal respect and esteem with which I have always regarded you. I
consider your services in your district valuable, and should be sorry to
lose them. It is unnecessary for me to state, however, that when
differences of opinion arise between officers of the government, the
ranking officer must be obeyed. You of course recognize as clearly as I
do the importance of this rule. I hope you will conclude to go on in
your present position under the regulations of the department. I wish
you would write to me.
_Letter to Mrs. Lincoln. Washington. August 8, 1863_
My dear Wife, All as well as usual, and no particular trouble anyway. I
put the money into the Treasury at five per cent., with the privilege of
withdrawing it any time upon thirty days' notice. I suppose you are glad
to learn this. Tell dear Tad poor "Nanny Goat" is lost, and Mrs.
Cuthbert and I are in distress about it. The day you left Nanny was
found resting herself and chewing her little cud on the middle of Tad's
bed; but now she's gone! The gardener kept complaining that she
destroyed the flowers, till it was concluded to bring her down to the
White House. This was done, and the second day she had disappeared and
has not been heard of since. This is the last we know of poor "Nanny."
_Letter to James H. Hackett. Washington. August 17, 1863_
My dear Sir, Months ago I should have acknowledged the receipt of your
book and accompanying kind note; and I now have to beg your pardon for
not having done so.
For one of my age I have seen very little of the drama. The first
presentation of Falstaff I ever saw was yours here, last winter or
spring. Perhaps the best compliment I can pay is to say, as I truly can,
I am very anxious to see it again. Some of Shakespeare's plays I have
never read; while others I have gone over perhaps as frequently as any
unprofessional reader. Among the latter are _Lear_, _Richard III._,
_Henry VIII._, _Hamlet_, and especially _Macbeth_. I think nothing
equals _Macbeth_. It is wonderful.
Unlike you gentlemen of the profession, I think the soliloquy in
_Hamlet_ commencing "Oh, my offence is rank," surpasses that commencing
"To be or not to be." But pardon this small attempt at criticism. I
should like to hear you pronounce the opening speech of Richard III.
Will you not soon visit Washington again? If you do, please call and let
me make your personal acquaintance.
_Note to Secretary Stanton. Washington. November 11, 1863_
Dear Sir, I personally wish Jacob Freese, of New Jersey, to be appointed
Colonel of a coloured regiment, and this regardless of whether he can
tell the exact shade of Julius Cæsar's hair.
_The Letter to James C. Conkling. August 26, 1863_
Your letter inviting me to attend a mass meeting of unconditional Union
men, to be held at the capital of Illinois on the third 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 partisan malice or partisan 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 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
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 favourably 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
favourably 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
coloured 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 these 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 could 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 colours
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 honourable part in it. And while those
who 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 web-feet 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.
_His Proclamation for a Day of Thanksgiving. October 3, 1863_
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the
blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties,
which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source
from which they come, others have been added, which are of so
extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the
heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of
Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which
has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and provoke their
aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been
maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has
prevailed everywhere, except in the theatre of military conflict; while
that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and
navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and strength from the fields of peaceful
industry to the national defence have not arrested the plough, the
shuttle, or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our
settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious
metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population
has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in
the camp, the siege, and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in
the consciousness of augmented strength and vigour, is permitted to
expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these
great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who,
while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless
remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly,
reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice
by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite, my
fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who
are at sea, and those sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and
observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and
praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I
recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to
Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with
humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend
to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners,
or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably
engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to
heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be
consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace,
harmony, tranquillity, and union.
_Address at the Dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg.
November 19, 1863_
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or
any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on
a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of
that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives
that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we
should do this.
But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we
cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled
here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The
world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can
never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be
dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have
thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to
the great task remaining before us; that from these honoured dead we
take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full
measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall
not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new
birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and
for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
_From the Annual Message to Congress. December 8, 1863_