"If a man tells you he loves America, yet hates labor, he is a liar!"
Abraham Lincoln
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__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
"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."
Lincoln was given to the use of metaphors at times. Gerald Henig and Eric Niderost, the authors of "Civil War Firsts - The Legacies of America's Bloodiest Conflict," speculate that in this case, Lincoln was thinking of the Union as the "life" and strict adherence to constitutional procedures as the "limb."
"I have heard, in such way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the Army and the Government needed a Dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain successes, can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship."
Lincoln's letter to Joseph Hooker giving him command of the Army of the Potomac, Jan. 26, 1863
Portion of a letter written by Abraham Lincoln to Albert Hodges on April 4, 1864.The letter offers an excellent glimpse into Lincoln's thinking about his constitutional responsibility and why he changed his inaugural position of non-interference with slavery to one of emancipation. He said, "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me."
"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 all together. When, early in the war, Gen. Fremont attempted military emancipation, I forbade it, because I did not then think it an indispensable necessity. When a little later, Gen. 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, Gen. Hunter attempted military emancipation, I again 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 any how or any where. 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 cavilling. We have the men; and we could not have had them without the measure."
President Lincoln after answering a reporters question on how tall he was. Was asked by a second more nervous. novice reporter. "How long should a man's legs be"?
To which the President answered...
"Long enough to reach the ground."
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
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