ivil 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 preserve 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
felt 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, altogether. When, early in the war, General Fremont
attempted military emancipation, I forbade it, because I did not then
think it an indispensable necessity. When, a little later, General
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, General 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 proposition, 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 any how, or anywhere. On