"Slavery is Wrong" - Lincoln Handwritten Letter

This letter, dated the 4th of April 1864, reflects President Lincoln's personal view of slavery.

In it, he says: "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."

The President wrote this in response to a request from Albert G. Hodges, who was the editor of Commonwealth (a Frankfort, Kentucky newspaper). The Library of Congress provides background on the letter and the meeting which generated it:

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.

Click on the image to examine it in greater detail.