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Matt Wright
GLI: Understanding Lincoln
Summer 2016

Lincolns Letter to Albert Hodges (1864): Balancing Personal Views with

Public Duty and the Doctrine of Necessity
On April 4, 1864 Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to Albert Hodges, a newspaper editor and proUnionist in Frankfort, Kentucky where he put to pen and paper the words he had spoken days
before to Hodges and fellow pro-Union Kentuckians. Lincoln begins the letter by acknowledging
his life-long anti-slavery feelings but then continues to explain how his presidential policy on
slavery had evolved since taking office. This public letter, authored in a re-election year, would
serve as a vessel for Lincoln to explain his actions in regards to the Emancipation Proclamation
to the people of Kentucky, a key border state. In fact, as early as 1861, Lincoln had written a
letter to Orville Hickman Browning stressing the importance of Kentucky in holding the border
states together, stating, I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game.
Kentucky gone, we cannot hold Missouri, nor, as I think, Maryland.[1] More importantly
though, this letter provides the reader keen insight into Lincolns belief in the Doctrine of
Necessity and his belief in the importance of separating his personal views from his public
duties.

Lincoln admits to being anti-slavery for as long as he can remember when he opens his letter
with the following words, 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.[2] This opening is important because
Lincoln is trying to be completely transparent with his feelings on the institution of slavery
before going into great detail for his readers about how his personal feelings had never clouded
the duties he accepted when he took the oath as President saying, I have never understood that
the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgement and
feeling. I understood, too, that in ordinary civil administration this oath even forbade me to
practically indulge my primary abstract judgement on the moral question of slavery.[3] He
reaffirms his claims of this belief by saying, I had publically declared this many times, and in
many ways.[4] In fact, on August 22, 1862, nearly two years prior to his letter to Hodges,
Lincoln had written a letter to Horace Greely declaring, My paramount object in the 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[5]
His words to Greely clearly show that despite his strong anti-slavery sentiments, his primary
duty was always to save the union, not end the institution he so personally condemned.

He continues in his letter to Hodges to affirm his strong belief in duty to the public and the
Constitution by declaring that he would, Preserve the constitution to the best of my ability by
every indispensable means[6] The words indispensable means refer to Lincolns belief in
the Doctrine of Necessity, the idea that sometimes extra-legal actions can be found to be
constitutional. In this case, Lincoln is explaining that he would be willing to break the law in
order to save the Union, which of course is his primary constitutional duty as president. He
explains this belief by posing his readers the question, Was it possible to lose the nation, and yet
preserve the constitution? Comparing the Constitution and the government to a mans life and

limb he explains, By general law life and limb must be protected; yet so often a limb must be
amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a limb.[7] This comparison
served as a strong rhetorical tool to convince the readers of his letter, the citizens of Kentucky,
that often times one has no choice but to make very difficult choices; and that Measures,
otherwise unconstitutional, such as amputating an arm, suspending civil liberties, or
emancipating slaves, might become lawful, by becoming indispensable to the preservation of
the constitution.[8]
However, Lincoln also made it very clear to his readers that these extra-legal actions should only
be looked to as a last resort. He goes on in his letter to cite multiple examples where in his role as
President, and Commander in Chief, he had ordered his Generals to cease activities including
military emancipation and arming the blacks, steps clearly in line with anti-slavery advocates,
feeling that there was not yet an indispensable necessity.[9] In the same letter written to
Browning in 1861, Lincoln criticized General Fremonts military proclamations on confiscation
and emancipation by saying, If the General needs them, he can seize them, and use them; but
when the need is past, it is not for him to fix their permanent future condition. That must be
settled according to laws made by law-makers, and not by military proclamations.[10] This
criticism of General Fremont also serves as reaffirmation in Lincolns belief in the Doctrine of
Necessity, he would allow his generals to do what was necessary, and nothing more, in order to
win the war and preserve the Union.
Eventually more action by Lincoln would soon be needed though, issuing the Emancipation
Proclamation on January 1, 1863 Lincoln changed the federal legal status of enslaved people in
designated areas of the South from slave to free. According historian James A. Dueholm,
By the time the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, bloody defeats and victories and war

weariness had built a case for African American troops and other steps to weaken the enemy and
strengthen the Union.[11] Clearly Lincoln believed that emancipation was now a necessity; he
argued, 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.[12] Lincoln goes on to
explain that initially even he himself did not know if the proclamation would be a success but
after more than a year had past, there had been no shown loss in foreign relations, popular
sentiment or in the white military force. He then celebrates the fact that because of the
proclamation, the Union gained, a hundred and thirty thousand soldiers, seaman, and laborers
and challenged any Union man to, (Take) these hundred and thirty thousand men from the
Union side, and place them where they would be but for the measure he condemns.[13]
Lincoln closes his letter by prefacing that his final words were not in the verbal conversation
before continuing to explain a fatalistic belief that, I claim not to have controlled events, but
confess plainly that events have controlled me.[14] I believe Lincoln decided to include these
final words to once again reaffirm in the minds of his readers that his act of emancipation was
not guided by personal views but by public duty. In an important election year, and in a crucial
border state, Lincolns emphasis on his reluctance, caution, and hesitation in calling for extreme
measures in the quest to save the Union served him well and helped keep the people of Kentucky
loyal to his cause. His letter would be so well received that eighteen days later Hodges would
respond to Lincoln stating, Have met but one as yet who dissents from your reasoning upon the
subject of slavery I think I may safely say now, that all will be safe in this state.[15]

In closing, Lincolns Letter to Albert Hodges deftly demonstrates his ability to defend actions
that many would consider clear violations of the Constitution. He successfully defends those

actions as indispensable necessities that were required to preserve that very constitution he
swore to protect. Lincolns message on this Doctrine of Necessity reflects the dangerous
balancing act between freedom and security that America would continue, and still continues, to
deal with till this day. The generations of Americans that would follow Lincoln would go on to
face multiple acts that were clear violations of civil liberties in the name of protecting the
country. During World War I, the Sedition Acts infringed on Americans First Amendment rights
as to make sure there was no interference with the war effort. Franklin Roosevelts Executive
Order 9066 called for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, a clear
violation of civil liberties in the name of safety and security for the nation. Even today we deal
with unprecedented acts of government in the forms of electronic surveillance and drone warfare
that have been deemed necessary to protect us yet bring up very questionable violations of the
civil liberties we hold so dear. We can only hope that our current and future leaders in
government do not abuse the doctrine of necessity and instead emulate Lincolns sense of public
duty and live up to Orville Hickman Brownings description of Lincoln in his diary in 1864, I
have no doubt he was honest and sincere in what he did, and actuated by conscientious views of
public duty.[16]

Notes
[1] Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Orville H. Browning, September 22, 1861, in Roy P. Basler,
ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (8 vols., New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University
Press, 1953), 4: 532-534, http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/
[2] Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Albert G. Hodges, April 4, 1864, Washington, DC, in Roy P.
Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (8 vols., New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press, 1953), 7: 281-283, http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/
[3] Lincoln, Letter to Albert G. Hodges
[4] Lincoln, Letter to Albert G. Hodges
[5] Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862, in Roy P. Basler, ed., The
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (8 vols., New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press,
1953), 5: 388-389
[6] Lincoln, Letter to Albert G. Hodges
[7] Lincoln, Letter to Albert G. Hodges
[8] Lincoln, Letter to Albert G. Hodges
[9] Lincoln, Letter to Albert G. Hodges
[10] Lincoln, Letter to Orville H. Browning
[11] James A. Dueholm, A Bill of Lading Delivers the Goods: The Constitutionality and Effect
of the Emancipation Proclamation, Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 31.1 (2010)
[12] Lincoln, Letter to Albert G. Hodges
[13] Lincoln, Letter to Albert G. Hodges
[14] Lincoln, Letter to Albert G. Hodges
[15] Albert G. Hodges, Letter Back to Abraham Lincoln, Frankfort, Kentucky (April 22, 1864)
[16] Orville Hickman Browning, The Diary of Orville Hickman Browning- Volume 1, 1850-1864,
Springfield, Illinois: Illinois State Historical Library (1925)