Executive Mansion, Washington,
April 4, 1864
A G. Hodges, Esq. Frankfort, Ky
My Dear Sir
You ask me to put in writing the substance of what I verbally stated the other day, in your presence, to Governor Branlette and Senator Doon it was about as follows:
I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so think and feet and yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted
right to act officially in this adgment and feeling it was in the oath I took that I would to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the
oath Nor was in my view that might take the oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power
I understood, too, that in ordinary c aministration this cath even forbade me to practically indulge my primary abstract udgment on the moral question of slavery I had publicly declared this many times and in
many ways, and laver that, to this day I have done no oficial 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, we and must be protected, yetohen amb must be amputated to save a life, but a te is never wisely given to save a mb. I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional might become awut
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 I could not feel that to the best of my ability I had even
tried to preserve the Constitution , to save slavery, or any minor mater, I should permit the wreck of government country, and Constitution alogether
When early in the war General Fremont nempted military emancipation, I forbadet, because I did not then think an indispensable necessity When, a little later, General Cameron, then Secretary of War
suggested the arming of the blacks, objected, because I did not yet think it an indispensable necessity When, Stillater General Hunter attempted military emancipation, I 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 pecessity 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 the surrendering the Union, and
with the Constitution, or of laying strong and upon the colored element. I chose the latter in choosing I hoped for greater gain than loss, but of this I was not entirely confident
Yours truly
A Lincoln
Use context to determine the meaning of the words in bold
I foretoldt
i prohibited
howed
lenovede