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PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



EXECUTIVE MANSION. WASHINGTON, Aug. 26M, 1S63. 

 Son. James C. Conklin : 



MY DBAK SIR : 1 our letter, inviting me to attend a 

 mass meeting of unconditional Union men, to be held 

 at the capital of Illinois, on the 3d day of September, 

 has been received. It would be very agreeable to me 

 thus to meet my old friends at mv own home; but I 

 cannot, just now, be absent from this city so long as a 

 visit there would require. 



The meeting is to be of all those who maintain un- 

 conditional devotion to the Union, and I am sure that 

 my old political friends will thank me for tendering, 

 as I do, the nation's gratitude to those other noble men 

 whom no partisan malice or partisan hope can make 

 false to the nation's life. There are those who are dis- 

 satisfied 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 nm 

 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. If you are, 

 you should say so plainly. If you are not for force, 

 nor yet for dissolution, there only remains some im- 

 aginary compromise. I do not believe that any com- 

 promise embracing the maintenance of the Union is 

 now possible. All that I learn leads to a directly op- 

 posite belief. The strength of the rebellion is its mili- 

 tary, its army. This army dominates all the country 

 and all the people within its range. Any offer of terms, 

 made by man or men, within that range, in opposition 

 to that army, is simply nothing for the present, oecausc 

 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 of the South and 

 peace men of the North meet together in convention, 

 and frame and proclaim a compromise, embracing a 

 restoration of the Union, in what way can that com- 

 promise be used to keep Gen. Lee's army out of Penn- 

 sylvania? Gen. Meade's army can keep Gen. Lee's 

 army put of Pennsylvania, and I think can ultimately 

 drive it out of existence. But no paper compromise, 

 to which the controllers of Gen. Lee s army are not 

 agreed, can at all affect that army. 



In an effort to make such compromise, we would 

 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 liber- 

 ated from the domination of that army by the success 

 of our army. 



Now, allow me to assure you that no word or inti- 

 mation from the 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 intimations to the contrary ere deceptive and 

 groundless, and I promise you that if any such prop- 

 osition shall hereafter come, it shall not be rejected 

 and kept secret from you. I freely acknowledge my- 

 self to be the servant of the people, according to the 

 bond of the 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 you, I suppose, do 

 not. Yet I have neither adopted nor proposed any 

 measure which is not consistent with even your views, 

 provided that you are for the Union. 



I suggested compensated emancipation, to which you 

 replica that you wished not to be taxed to buy negroes. 

 But I had not asked you to be taxed to buy negroes, 

 except in such a way as to save you from greater taxa- 

 tion to save the Union exclusively by other means. 



You dislike the Emancipation Proclamation, and, 

 perhaps, would like to have it retracted. You say it 

 ! unconstitutional. I think differently. I think that 

 theT!onstitution vests the commander-in-chief with 

 the law of war in time of war. The most that can be 

 said, if BO much, is, that slaves are property. Has 



there ever been any question that by law of war prop, 

 erty, 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, de- 

 stroy the enemy's 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, re- 

 garded as barbarous and cruel. Among the excep- 

 tions are the massacre of vanquished foes and non- 

 combatants, male and female. But the Proclamation 

 law is valid or it 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 that retraction would operate 

 favorably to the Union. Why better after the retrac- 

 tion than before the issue? There was more than a 

 year and a half of trial to suppress the rebellion before 

 the Proclamation was issued, the last one hundred 

 days of which passed under an explicit notice that it 

 was coming, unless averted by those in rebellion re- 

 turning to their allegiance. 



The'war has certainly progressed as favorably to us 

 since the issue of the Proclamation as before. I know, 

 as fully as one can know the opinion of others, that 

 some of the commanders of our armies in the field, 

 who have given us our most important victories, be- 

 lieve the emancipation policy and the aid of colored 

 troops constituted the heaviest blows yet dealt to the 

 rebellion, and that at least one of these important suc- 

 cesses could not have been achieved, 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 their opinion as being entitled to some weight 

 against the objections often urged that emancipation 

 and arming the blacks are unwise as military meas- 

 ures, and were not adopted in good faith. 



You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some 

 of them seem to be willing enough to fight for you. 

 But no matter. They fight, 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 

 upon you to continue fighting, it will be an apt time then 

 for you to declare that you will not fight to free negroes. 

 I thought that in your struggle for the Union, to what- 

 ever extent the negroes should cease helping the en- 

 emy, to that extent it weakened the enejny in their 

 resistance to you. 



Do you think differently ? I thought that whatever 

 negroes can be got to do as soldiers, leaves just so 

 much less for white 'soldiers to do in saving theunion. 

 Does it appear otherwise to you? But negroes, like 

 other people, act upon motive. Why should they do 

 anything for us, if we will do nothing for them? If 

 they stake their lives for us, they must pe 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 North- 

 west for it ; nor yet wholly to them, for three hundred 

 miles up they met New England ; Empire, Keystone, 

 and Jersey hewing their way right and left. The 

 sunny South, too, in more colors than one, also lent a 

 hand. On the spot, then, part of the history was jot- 

 ted down in black and white. The job was a great na- 

 tional one, and let none be bound who bore an honor- 

 able part in it ; and while those who have cleared the 

 great river may well be proud, even that is not all. 



It is hard to say that any thing has been done more 

 bravely and better done than Antietam, Murfreesboro, 

 Gettysburg, and on many fields of less note ; nor must 

 Uncle Sam's webbed feet be forgotten. At all tBe trai- 

 tors' margins they have been present, not only on the 

 deep sea, the broad bay, and the rapid river, out 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 

 principles by which it lives and keeps alive for man's 



