1860s, Letter to Horace Greeley (1862)
Context: 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 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.”
1860s, Letter to Horace Greeley (1862)
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Abraham Lincoln 618
16th President of the United States 1809–1865Related quotes
June 17
Addresses to the Virginia Ratifying Convention (1788)
1860s, Letter to James C. Conkling (1863)
Memorial Day Address (31 May 1915)
1910s
Diary entry (1820), as quoted in The Diary of John Quincy Adams (1951), by John Quincy Adams, Scribner's Sons, New York, p. 228-229 http://web.archive.org/web/20130703084250/http://home.nas.com/lopresti/ps6.htm
2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), Q&A
Source: Fire Watch (1982), pp. 129-130 in The Nebula Awards 18 edited by Robert Silverberg
Interview with Brian Lamb, In Depth Book TV (2000)
Diary (5 June 1862)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)
Context: These semi-traitors [Union generals who were not hostile to slavery] must be watched. — Let us be careful who become army leaders in the reorganized army at the end of this Rebellion. The man who thinks that the perpetuity of slavery is essential to the existence of the Union, is unfit to be trusted. The deadliest enemy the Union has is slavery — in fact, its only enemy.
Letter to his son http://radgeek.com/gt/2005/01/03/robert-e-Lee-owned-slaves-and-defended-slavery/, G. W. Custis Lee (23 January 1861).
1860s
Context: I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation. I hope, therefore, that all constitutional means will be exhausted before there is a resort to force. Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It is intended for 'perpetual Union,' so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession: anarchy would have been established, and not a government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and all the other patriots of the Revolution. … Still, a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm for me. I shall mourn for my country and for the welfare and progress of mankind. If the Union is dissolved and the Government disrupted, I shall return to my native State and share the miseries of my people, and, save in defense will draw my sword on none.