The Letter to James C. Conkling.

August 26, 1863

Your letter inviting me to attend a mass meeting of unconditional Union men, to be

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.