Letter of Abraham Lincoln to Horace Greeley

Before the war, Abraham Lincoln expressed antislavery sympathies and recorded his hostility to slavery's further expansion, but he opposed abolishing the institution altogether. He continued this stance once elected president. However, as the war continued longer than many expected, a growing number of Unionists urged President Lincoln to destroy slavery as a means of weakening the Confederacy. Amid a continuing stalemate in the eastern theater, Horace Greeley, the Republican editor of the New York Tribune criticized Lincoln for his slowness to act in his open letter “The Prayer of Twenty Millions” published on August 19, 1862. Lincoln responded in this public letter to Greeley dated August 22, 1862, and published in the Tribune. At the time he wrote the letter, Lincoln had already decided to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

EXECUTIVE MANSION,

WASHINGTON, Aug. 22, 1862.

Hon. Horace Greeley:

DEAR SIR: I have just read yours of the 19th, addressed to myself through the New York Tribune. If there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing," as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

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. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or 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 this Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free. Yours,

A. LINCOLN.