The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln

by Abraham Lincoln

  Great honor is due to those officers who remained true, despite the example of their treacherous associates; but the greatest honor, and most important fact of all, is the unanimous firmness of the common soldiers and common sailors. To the last man, so far as known, they have successfully resisted the traitorous efforts of those whose commands, but an hour before, they obeyed as absolute law. This is the patriotic instinct of the plain people. They understand, without an argument, that the destroying of the government which was made by Washington means no good to them.

  Our popular government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it our people have already settled—the successful establishing and the successful administering of it. One still remains—its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it. It is now for them to demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly carry an election can also suppress a rebellion; that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets; and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets; that there can be no successful appeal, except to ballots themselves, at succeeding elections. Such will be a great lesson of peace: teaching men that what they cannot take by an election, neither can they take it by a war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war.

  Lest there be some uneasiness in the minds of candid men as to what is to be the course of the government toward the Southern States after the rebellion shall have been suppressed, the executive deems it proper to say it will be his purpose then, as ever, to be guided by the Constitution and the laws; and that he probably will have no different understanding of the powers and duties of the Federal Government relatively to the rights of the States and the people, under the Constitution, than that expressed in the inaugural address.

  He desires to preserve the government, that it may be administered for all as it was administered by the men who made it. Loyal citizens everywhere have the right to claim this of their government, and the government has no right to withhold or neglect it. It is not perceived that in giving it there is any coercion, any conquest, or any subjugation, in any just sense of those terms.

  The Constitution provides, and all the States have accepted the provision, that “the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government.” But if a State may lawfully go out of the Union, having done so, it may also discard the republican form of government; so that to prevent its going out is an indispensable means to the end of maintaining the guarantee mentioned; and when an end is lawful and obligatory, the indispensable means to it are also lawful and obligatory.

  It was with the deepest regret that the executive found the duty of employing the war power in defense of the government forced upon him. He could but perform this duty or surrender the existence of the government. No compromise by public servants could, in this case, be a cure; not that compromises are not often proper, but that no popular government can long survive a marked precedent that those who carry an election can only save the government from immediate destruction by giving up the main point upon which the people gave the election. The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.

  As a private citizen the executive could not have consented that these institutions shall perish; much less could he, in betrayal of so vast and so sacred a trust as the free people have confided to him. He felt that he had no moral right to shrink, nor even to count the chances of his own life in what might follow. In full view of his great responsibility he has, so far, done what he has deemed his duty. You will now, according to your own judgment, perform yours.

  He sincerely hopes that your views and your actions may so accord with his, as to assure all faithful citizens who have been disturbed in their rights of a certain and speedy restoration to them, under the Constitution and the laws.

  And having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear and with manly hearts.

  MEMORANDA OF MILITARY POLICY

  (Written after the defeat at Bull Run)

  The Battle of Bull Run had been fought and lost on July 21. All night long, and throughout the next day, the defeated troops had poured into Washington. Lincoln had stayed up all night to hear first-hand accounts of the battle. On the next night he jotted down this outline of military policy. On July 23, he copied out carefully what he had written, and on July 27, added two more items.

  July 23, 1861

  1. LET the plan for making the blockade effective be pushed forward with all possible dispatch.

  2. Let the volunteer forces at Fort Monroe and vicinity under General Butler be constantly drilled, disciplined, and instructed without more for the present.

  3. Let Baltimore be held as now, with a gentle but firm and certain hand.

  4. Let the force now under Patterson or Banks be strengthened and made secure in its position.

  5. Let the forces in Western Virginia act till further orders according to instructions or orders from General McClellan.

  6. [Let] General Frémont push forward his organization and operations in the West as rapidly as possible, giving rather special attention to Missouri.

  7. Let the forces late before Manassas, except the three-months men, be reorganized as rapidly as possible in their camps here and about Arlington.

  8. Let the three-months forces who decline to enter the longer service be discharged as rapidly as circumstances will permit.

  9. Let the new volunteer forces be brought forward as fast as possible, and especially into the camps on the two sides of the river here.

  (Added on July 27, 1861)

  When the foregoing shall have been substantially attended to:

  1. Let Manassas Junction (or some point on one or other of the railroads near it) and Strasburg be seized and permanently held, with an open line from Washington to Manassas, and an open line from Harper’s Ferry to Strasburg—the military men to find the way of doing these.

  2. This done, a joint movement from Cairo on Memphis, and from Cincinnati on East Tennessee.

  LETTER TO GENERAL JOHN C. FRÉMONT

  John C. Frémont had been the Presidential candidate during the campaign of 1856. He was picturesque and colorful; more picturesque, however, than competent. Lincoln had placed him in command in Missouri—a border state that was being torn apart by its Confederate and Union allegiances. Frémont bungled the campaign in Missouri, and charges of corruption in army contracts in that section became a public scandal. On August 30, Frémont had issued a proclamation emancipating the slaves belonging to all those people in his territory who had taken up arms against the United States Government. The first word Lincoln had had of his commander’s ill-advised attempt at emancipation was when he read an account of it in a newspaper. He writes here a gentle letter to Frémont, suggesting that he modify his proclamation.

  Washington, D. C., September 2, 1861

  MY DEAR SIR: Two points in your proclamation of August 30 give me some anxiety:

  FIRST. Should you shoot a man, according to the proclamation, the Confederates would very certainly shoot our best men in their hands in retaliation; and so, man for man, indefinitely. It is, therefore, my order that you allow no man to be shot under the proclamation without first having my approbation or consent.

  SECOND. I think there is a great danger that the closing paragraph, in relation to the confiscation of property and the liberating slaves of traitorous owners, will alarm our Southern Union friends and turn them against us; perhaps ruin our rather fair prospect for Kentucky. Allow me, therefore, to ask that you will, as of your own motion, modify that paragraph so as to conform to the first and fourth sections of the act of Congress entitled, “An act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes,” approved August 6, 1861, and a copy of which act I herewith send you.

  This letter is written in a spirit of caution, and not of censure. I sen
d it by special messenger, in order that it may certainly and speedily reach you.

  ORDER TO GENERAL FRÉMONT

  Frémont refused to take Lincoln’s suggestion that he modify his proclamation of emancipation and bluntly told Lincoln that if the proclamation were to be modified, it would have to be done by Presidential command. Lincoln here issues the official order, modifying the proclamation.

  Washington, September 11, 1861

  SIR: Yours of the 8th, in answer to mine of the 2d instant, is just received. Assuming that you, upon the ground, could better judge of the necessities of your position than I could at this distance, on seeing your proclamation of August 30 I perceived no general objection to it. The particular clause, however, in relation to the confiscation of property and the liberation of slaves appeared to me to be objectionable in its nonconformity to the act of Congress passed the 6th of last August upon the same subjects; and hence I wrote you, expressing my wish that that clause should be modified accordingly. Your answer, just received, expresses the preference on your part that I should make an open order for the modification, which I very cheerfully do. It is therefore ordered that the said clause of said proclamation be so modified, held, and construed as to conform to, and not to transcend, the provisions on the same subject contained in the act of Congress entitled, “An act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes,” approved August 6, 1861, and that said act be published at length with this order.

  Your obedient servant,

  A. LINCOLN

  LETTER TO O. H. BROWNING

  Frémont’s attempt to liberate the slaves in the section under his command had been received with great approbation by the abolitionists. Lincoln’s order countermanding Frémont’s proclamation was widely criticized by them. Browning, a lawyer of Quincy, Illinois, was a close personal friend of Lincoln’s. He wrote to the President questioning what he had done; Lincoln here replies to him giving him the reasons for his action in the Frémont matter.

  (Private and confidential)

  Executive Mansion, September 22, 1861

  MY DEAR SIR: Yours of the 17th is just received; and coming from you, I confess it astonishes me. That you should object to my adhering to a law which you had assisted in making and presenting to me less than a month before is odd enough. But this is a very small part. General Frémont’s proclamation as to confiscation of property and the liberation of slaves is purely political and not within the range of military law or necessity. If a commanding general finds a necessity to seize the farm of a private owner for a pasture, an encampment, or a fortification, he has the right to do so, and to so hold it as long as the necessity lasts; and this is within military law, because within military necessity. But to say the farm shall no longer belong to the owner, or his heirs forever, and this as well when the farm is not needed for military purposes as when it is, is purely political, without the savor of military law about it. And the same is true of slaves. If the general needs them, he can seize them and use them; but when the need is past, it is not for him to fix their permanent future condition. That must be settled according to laws made by law-makers, and not by military proclamations. The proclamation in the point in question is simply “dictatorship.” It assumes that the general may do anything he pleases—confiscate the lands and free the slaves of loyal people, as well as of disloyal ones. And going the whole figure, I have no doubt, would be more popular with some thoughtless people than that which has been done! But I cannot assume this reckless position, nor allow others to assume it on my responsibility.

  You speak of it as being the only means of saving the government. On the contrary, it is itself the surrender of the government. Can it be pretended that it is any longer the Government of the United States—any government of constitution and laws—wherein a general or a president may make permanent rules of property by proclamation? I do not say Congress might not with propriety pass a law on the point, just such as General Frémont proclaimed. I do not say I might not, as a member of Congress, vote for it. What I object to is, that I, as President, shall expressly or impliedly seize and exercise the permanent legislative functions of the government.

  So much as to principle. Now as to policy. No doubt the thing was popular in some quarters, and would have been more so if it had been a general declaration of emancipation. The Kentucky legislature would not budge till that proclamation was modified; and General Anderson telegraphed me that on news of General Frémont having actually issued deeds of manumission, a whole company of our volunteers threw down their arms and disbanded. I was so assured as to think it probable that the very arms we had furnished Kentucky would be turned against us. I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game. Kentucky gone, we cannot hold Missouri, nor, as I think, Maryland. These all against us, and the job on our hands is too large for us. We would as well consent to separation at once, including the surrender of this capital. On the contrary, if you will give up your restlessness for new positions, and back me manfully on the grounds upon which you and other kind friends gave me the election and have approved in my public documents, we shall go through triumphantly. You must not understand I took my course on the proclamation because of Kentucky. I took the same ground in a private letter to General Frémont before I heard from Kentucky.

  You think I am inconsistent because I did not also forbid General Frémont to shoot men under the proclamation. I understand that part to be within military law, but I also think, and so privately wrote General Frémont, that it is impolitic in this, that our adversaries have the power, and will certainly exercise it, to shoot as many of our men as we shoot of theirs. I did not say this in the public letter, because it is a subject I prefer not to discuss in the hearing of our enemies.

  NOTE TO MAJOR RAMSEY

  This is one of Lincoln’s characteristic notes in which the personality of the man comes through the ordinarily cut-and-dried wording of such documents.

  Executive Mansion, October 17, 1861

  MY DEAR SIR: The lady bearer of this says she has two sons who want to work. Set them at it if possible. Wanting to work is so rare a want that it should be encouraged.

  ORDER RETIRING GENERAL SCOTT AND APPOINTING GENERAL McCLELLAN HIS SUCCESSOR

  General Winfield Scott was seventy-five years old in 1861 and in bad physical condition—so bad in fact that he was confined to bed most of the time; his heavy body had to be hoisted up into a sitting position by an elaborate harness. He was obviously in no state to command the Federal armies during an important war. Lincoln had brought McClellan to Washington a few days after the Battle of Bull Run. McClellan had treated his elder superior officer with contempt, and relations between the two men had become increasingly strained. Lincoln here regretfully retires Scott, with Scott’s own consent, and appoints McClellan in his stead.

  Executive Mansion, Washington, November 1, 1861

  ON THE 1ST day of November, A.D., 1861, upon his own application to the President of the United States, Brevet Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott is ordered to be placed, and hereby is placed, upon the list of retired officers of the army of the United States, without reduction in his current pay, subsistence, or allowances.

  The American people will hear with sadness and deep emotion that General Scott has withdrawn from the active control of the army, while the President and a unanimous Cabinet express their own and the nation’s sympathy in his personal affliction, and their profound sense of the important public services rendered by him to his country during his long and brilliant career, among which will ever be gratefully distinguished his faithful devotion to the Constitution, the Union, and the flag when assailed by parricidal rebellion.

  A. LINCOLN

  The President is pleased to direct that Major-General George B. McClellan assume the command of the army of the United States.…

  FROM THE ANNUAL MESSAGE TO CONGRESS

  The special session of Congress called by President Lincoln for July 4 had adjourned on August 6.
Congress met in regular session on December 3, and Lincoln here delivers his first annual message. It was delivered against a background of excited public discussion of the Trent Affair. It is interesting to note that Lincoln here departs, for the first time, from the custom used in the earlier July message of mentioning himself only as “he” or “the Executive.” He now uses the pronoun “I.” In this message he again presents his theories on the relationship between capital and labor.

  December 3, 1861

  FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: In the midst of unprecedented political troubles we have cause of great gratitude to God for unusual good health and most abundant harvests.

  You will not be surprised to learn that, in the peculiar exigencies of the times, our intercourse with foreign nations has been attended with profound solicitude, chiefly turning upon our own domestic affairs.

  A disloyal portion of the American people have, during the whole year, been engaged in an attempt to divide and destroy the Union. A nation which endures factious domestic division is exposed to disrespect abroad; and one party, if not both, is sure, sooner or later, to invoke foreign intervention. Nations thus tempted to interfere are not always able to resist the counsels of seeming expediency and ungenerous ambition, although measures adopted under such influences seldom fail to be unfortunate and injurious to those adopting them.

  The disloyal citizens of the United States who have offered the ruin of our country in return for the aid and comfort which they have invoked abroad, have received less patronage and encouragement than they probably expected. If it were just to suppose, as the insurgents have seemed to assume, that foreign nations in this case, discarding all moral, social, and treaty obligations, would act solely and selfishly for the most speedy restoration of commerce, including, especially, the acquisition of cotton, those nations appear as yet not to have seen their way to their object more directly or clearly through the destruction than through the preservation of the Union. If we could dare to believe that foreign nations are actuated by no higher principle than this, I am quite sure a sound argument could be made to show them that they can reach their aim more readily and easily by aiding to crush this rebellion than by giving encouragement to it.