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From: "Renee Brandel" <>
Subject: [HODGES-L] abe lincoln to ajhodges
Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2000 19:23:27 -0500


http://www.go.com/Titles?lk=noframes&qt=massachusetts+genealogy&col=WW&svx=c
hunks American Treasures of the Library of Congress: TOP TREASURES

If Slavery Is Not Wrong, Nothing Is Wrong
On March 26, 1864, former Senator Archibald Dixon, Governor Thomas E.
Bramlette, and Albert G. Hodges, editor of the Frankfort, Kentucky,
Commonwealth, journeyed from Kentucky to meet with Lincoln to discuss the
recruitment of slaves as soldiers in Kentucky. There was considerable
dissatisfaction in the Blue Grass state on the issue because, although the
Emancipation Proclamation did not apply in the border states, runaway slaves
could gain their freedom through military service.

Lincoln heard their complaints but went on to persuasively outline the
benefits of allowing blacks to serve in the Federal Army. Lincoln began his
statement, "I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is
wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel. And yet I have
never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right
to act officially upon this judgment and feeling."

Hodges was so convinced that he asked the President to put his arguments in
writing. The result is perhaps Lincoln's most candid statement on slavery.


Abraham Lincoln to A.G. Hodges
Holograph letter April 4, 1864
page1
page2
page3

Manuscript Division




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