HELP WITRY
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 verbaly stated the other day, in your presence, to Governor Branlette and Senator Don. It was about as follows:
la natural anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong nothing is wrong, I cannot remember when I did not so think and fool and yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially in
this judgment and feeling. It was in the oath I took that I would to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Consttution of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the cath. Nor was it in my view that I
might take the oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power
I understood, too, that in ordinary cvi administration this cath even forbade me to practical indulge my primary abstract Magment on the moral question of slavery. I had publicly declared this many times and in many ways and
aver that, to this day I have done no official act in more deference to my abstract udgment and feeling on slavery. I od understand, however that my oath to preserve the Constrution to the best of my ability imposed upon me the duty of
preserving, by every indispensable means that government, that ration, of which that Constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the nation, and yet preserve the Constitution?
By general law, ife and limb must be protected: yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life, but aife is never widey oven to save a motort that measures otherwise unconstitutional, mint become lawu by becoming
Indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution through the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I sumed the ground, and now avow it. I could not feel that to the best of my ability I had even tried to preserve the
Constution, it to save avery, 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 la General Cameron, then Secretary of War, suggested the arming of
the blacks, objected, because I did not yet think it an indispensable necessity. When tillater General Hurter attempted mitary emancipation, I forbade it because id not yet in the indispensable necessity had come. When in
March and May and Juy, 1862, I made earnest and successive appeals to the Border States to favor compensated emancipation, I believed the indispensabile necessitor military emancipation and wing the black would come,
unless averted by that measure. They decined the propostore and I was in my best judgment, driven to the alternative of the surrendering the Union, and with the Constitution or of laying strong hand upon the colored lernent.
chose the latter in choosing t. I hoped for greater gain than loss, but of this was not entirely confident
Yours truly
A Uncoin
Read this sentence from the text:
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 the Constitution was the
organic low
Which of the following best describes the meaning of the please every indispensable means?
O Any method possible
Each optional choice
Specific koyalternatives
Several key enhancements