e 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
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 anyhow or anywhere. On the contrary, it
shows a gain of quite a hundred and thirty thousand soldiers, seamen,
and laborers. These are palpable facts, about which, as facts, there
can be no caviling. We have the men; and we could not have had them
without the measure.

"And now let any Union man who complains of the measure test
himself by writing down in one line that he is for subduing the
rebellion by force of arms; and in the next, that he is for taking
three [one?] hundred and thirty thousand men from the Union side, and
placing them where they would be but for the measure he condemns. If
he cannot face his case so stated, it is only because he cannot face
the truth.

"I add a word which was not in the verbal conversation. In telling
this tale, I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity. I claim not to
have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have
controlled me. Now, at the end of three years' struggle, the nation's
condition is not what either party or any man desired or expected.
God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now
wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also tha