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the other day, in your presence, to Gov. Bramlette and Senator Dixon. It was about as follows:

I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not 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 upon 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 my view, that I might take an 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 pre

serve the Constitution?

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. I feel 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 proposi

tion, 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 anyhow 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 caviling. We have the men, and we could not have had them without the measure.

And now, let any Union man who complains of the measure, test himself, by writing down in one line that he is for subduing the rebellion by force of arms, and in the next that he is for taking these 130,000 men from the Union side, and placing them where they would be, but for the measure he condemns. If he can not face his cause so stated, it is only because he can not face the truth.

I add a word, which was not in the verbal conversation. In telling this tale, I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity. I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years' struggle, the Nation's condition is not what either party or any man devised or expected. God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending, seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North, as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God.

Yours, truly,

A. LINCOLN.

When Mr. Lincoln's determination to employ negro soldiers first became publicly known, it encountered "conservative opposition in the loyal States. To many, even, who hoped success from this movement, it was a doubtful experiment. The results shown in the foregoing letter, leave this no longer an open question. Prejudice has given way before demonstrated fact, until soldiers in the field and citizens at home now welcome the aid of this immense power, wrested from the enemy and added to the loyal armies.

The arch conspirator at Richmond had the sagacity to see that serious consequences were involved in this policy. Resorting to the methods so long potent with the men of his class, and

seemingly forgetful, for the moment, that they were not still equally available, he fulminated a threatening edict, designed to arrest this work by intimidation. It was plainly indicated that neither black soldiers nor their white officers need claim any of the immunities recognized under the laws of war. This was emphatically met by the President, in the only possible way, by orders for retaliation, issued to our armies.

General Order, No. 100, under date of April 24, 1863, promulgating general instructions for the government of our armies, "previously approved by the President," contain the following directions, specially enjoining the protection of colored troops:

The law of nations knows of no distinction of color, and if an enemy of the United States should enslave and sell any captured persons of their army, it would be a case for the severest retaliation, if not redressed upon complaint. United States can not retaliate by enslavement; therefore, death must be the retaliation for this crime against the law of nations.

The

All troops of the enemy known or discovered to give no quarter in general, or to any portion of the army, receive none.

Mr. Lincoln made these instructions more explicit and direct, in the following order issued by himself as Commander-inChief, and communicated to the entire Army, referring to this subject alone:

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It is the duty of every Government to give protection to its citizens, of whatever class, color or condition, and especially to those who are duly organized as soldiers in the public service. The law of Nations, and the usages and customs of war, as carried on by civilized powers, permit no distinction as to color in the treatment of prisoners of war as public enemies. To sell or enslave any captured person, on account of his color, and for no offense against the laws of war, is a relapse into barbarism, and a crime against the civilization of the age.

The Government of the United States will give the same protection to all its soldiers; and if the enemy shall sell or enslave any one because of his color, the offense shall be punished by retaliation upon the enemy's prisoners in our possession.

It is therefore ordered, that for every soldier of the United States killed in violation of the laws of war, a Rebel soldier shall be exccuted; and for every one enslaved by the enemy or

sold into slavery, a Rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on the public works, and continued at such labor until the other shall be released and receive the treatment due to a prisoner of war. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

How completely the Administration has been able, under the often critical and complicated situations resulting from an extended blockade of our coast, from a premature concession of belligerent rights to armed Rebels by leading powers of Europe, from the constant and crafty efforts of Secession emissaries to secure a recognition of the so-called Confederacy by those powers, and from all the incidents of an unprecedented civil war, necessarily affecting our foreign relations in various ways, to maintain peace with other nations, can not be lost sight of in the excitement of military events at home. The value of this successful pacific policy-which has been attended by an increase rather than a diminution of respect abroad—can not be too highly estimated.

Not less conspicuous is the success which has attended the financial policy of the Government. This is, indeed, a marvel which would have hardly been credited in advance as possible, with the prospect of a war lengthened out beyond the period of three years, and calling into the service a million and a half of men, with all the attendant expenditures. To-day, however, Government securities are firm; no one doubts the full payment of every dollar of the public indebtedness; every new loan is speedily taken; and no adjusted claim has long to await liquidation. The operations of the Army and Navy, related in only the merest summary of the more prominent events, and necessarily excluding more than an allusion to much that would have required volumes to detail at large, have engrossed a great portion of the preceding pages. Could exact justice be done in such a narrative, as affecting both these branches of the service, it would clearly appear that neither has been wanting in efficient executive management, or in its proper share of the great work already accomplished. On these two strong arms of war, now so organized by the President as to secure universal confidence, must mainly depend the future issues of the great conflict.

APPENDIX.

VARIOUS PROCLAMATIONS, LETTERS, ETC., OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN,

NOT CONTAINED IN THE BODY OF THE WORK.

RESPECTING SOLDIERS ABSENT WITHOUT LEAVE.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA-A PROCLAMATION.

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EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, March 10, 1863. J In pursuance of the twenty-sixth section of the act of Congress, entitled an act for enrolling and calling out the National forces, and for other purposes, approved on the third of March, in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, I, Abraham Lincoln, President and Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, do hereby order and command that all soldiers enlisted or drafted into the service of the United States, now absent from their regiments without leave, shall forthwith return to their respective regiments; and I do hereby declare and proclaim that all soldiers now absent from their respective regiments without leave, who shall, on or before the first day of April, 1863, report themselves at any rendezvous designated by the general orders of the War Department, No. 58, hereto annexed, may be restored to their respective regiments without punishment, except the forfeiture of pay and allowances during their absence; and all who do not return within the time above specified, shall be arrested as deserters, and punished as the law provides;

AND WHEREAS, Evil-disposed and disloyal persons, at sundry places, have enticed and procured soldiers to desert and absent themselves from their regiments, thereby weakening the strength of the armies and prolonging the war, giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and cruelly exposing the gallant and faithful soldiers remaining in the ranks to increased hardships and dangers;

I do, therefore, call upon all patriotic and faithful citizens to oppose and resist the aforementioned dangerous and treasonable crimes, and aid in restoring to their regiments all soldiers absent without leave, and assist in the execution of the act of Congress for "enrolling and calling out the National forces,

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