Raynors HCA 2015-08
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/27/2015
Newspaper, National Intelligencer, Washington, August 23, 1862, 4pp. From an inside page, under the headline “A Letter From The President,” there is a full printing of Lincoln’s response to Horace Greeley. On August 20, 1862, Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, publicly criticized President Lincoln in his editorial of August 20, "A Prayer of Twenty Millions," for failing to free all those slaves who escaped to the Union Army. In July of that year, Congress had passed the second Confiscation Act, which freed slaves from Confederate states if they came into Union territory. Lincoln refused to enforce the law, insisting upon his idea of gradual emancipation instead. Lincoln’s letter in large part; “I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. ..... As to the policy I ‘seem to be pursuing’ as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be ‘the Union as it was.’ If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free. Yours, A. Lincoln.” VG.
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