Lincoln Quotes

[L Verge]

I have been a big fan of the actor Tom Selleck from early days and admit to being somewhat addicted to his current program, Blue Bloods. This past Friday's episode involved a young female police officer whose actions placed the reputation of the NYPD in jeopardy, and Selleck (in his role as Police Commissioner) had to decide what action to take against her.

In making his decision to terminate her, Selleck supposedly read a quote from Abraham Lincoln that basically said that, when a limb of a tree is diseased, one cuts off the limb to save the tree. Does anyone know if this is a true Lincoln quote or the words of a good script writer?

There was a second part as to what to do if the tree itself is diseased, but I can't remember what it was. I was too busy cogitating on the implication of those words if they really did come from Lincoln -- the man who refused to let the "diseased" limb (i.e. the Confederacy) of the Union be cut off to fend for itself.

[RJNorton]

Laurie, here is the whole quote from the show:

"By general law, life and limb must be protected, yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life, but a life is never wisely given to save a limb," Abraham Lincoln. This department is the life, Officer Whitman is a limb."

Vicki and I were watching, too. My initial thought when watching was that this was not an authentic Lincoln quote, but maybe someone else will know. I am going to try to research it.

[RJNorton]

I was wrong --> found it! It is in this letter in The Collected Works. In truth, several well-known Lincoln quotes come from this letter.

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To Albert G. Hodges [1]


A. G. Hodges, Esq Executive Mansion,
Frankfort, Ky. Washington, April 4, 1864.

My dear Sir: You ask me to put in writing the substance of what I verbally said the other day, in your presence, to Governor Bramlette and Senator Dixon. It was about as follows:

``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. It was in the oath I took that I would, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power. I understood, too, that in ordinary civil administration this oath even forbade me to practically indulge my primary abstract judgment on the moral question of slavery. I had publicly declared this many times, and in many ways. And I aver that, to this day, I have done no official act in mere deference to my abstract judgment and feeling on slavery. 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 that constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the nation, and yet preserve the constitution? By general law life and limb → must be protected; yet often a ← limb → must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a ← limb. I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the constitution, through the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it. I could not feel that, to the best of my ability, I had even tried to preserve the constitution, if, to save slavery, or any minor matter, I should permit the wreck of government, country, and Constitution all together. When, early in the war, Gen. Fremont attempted military emancipation, I forbade it, because I did not then think it an indispensable necessity. When a little later, Gen. 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, Gen. Hunter attempted military emancipation, I again 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 any how or any [2] where. 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 cavilling. 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 these hundred and thirty thousand men from the Union side, and placing them where they would be but for the measure he condemns. If he can not face his case so stated, it is only because he can not 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 devised, 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 that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God. Yours truly

A. LINCOLN

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[1] ADfS, DLC-RTL. Albert G. Hodges, editor of the Frankfort, Kentucky, Commonwealth, and Archibald Dixon, former senator from Kentucky, 1852-1855, met with Lincoln on March 26 to discuss border state problems. Orville H. Browning's Diary under date of April 3, 1864, records the visit: ``The President told me that a few days before Govr Bramlett of Ky: Hon Archibald Dixon & Mr Hodges of the same state had called upon him in regard to the enlistment of slaves as soldiers in Ky, in reference to which there has been much dissatisfaction in that State, and that everything had been amicably adjusted between them, and that they had gone home satisfied. He said when they were discussing the matter he asked them to let him make a little speech to them, which he did and with which they were much pleased. That afterwards Mr Hodges came back to him, and asked him to give him a copy of his remarks to take with him to Ky. He told Mr Hodges that what he had said was not written, and that he had not then time to commit it to paper---but to go home and he would write him a letter in which he would give, as nearly as he could all that he had said to them orally. . . .'' See further, Lincoln to Hodges, April 22, infra.


[2] ``Any'' inserted by an unidentified person.

[David Lockmiller]

(03-04-2018 01:07 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  I was wrong --> found it! It is in this letter in The Collected Works. In truth, several well-known Lincoln quotes come from this letter.

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To Albert G. Hodges [1]


A. G. Hodges, Esq Executive Mansion,
Frankfort, Ky. Washington, April 4, 1864.

My dear Sir: You ask me to put in writing the substance of what I verbally said the other day, in your presence, to Governor Bramlette and Senator Dixon. It was about as follows:

Roger, it would appear that President Lincoln had a lot of discussion on this particular topic in a narrow span of time. Francis Carpenter in his book Six Months at the White House at page 79 wrote:

Upon referring to the date of the "Hodges" letter, it will be seen that it was written April 4th, only three days before the visit of Mr. Thompson and party. The coincidence of thought and expression in that statement, and the President's conversation on this occasion, are noticeable; and are explained by the fact, that, with the language of that letter still fresh in his mind, he very naturally fell into a similar vein of illustration.

Francis Carpenter's discussion on this subject runs from page 75 through page 79 of his book. It is an excellent read. The following is a limited portion of the text.

Mr. George Thompson, the English anti-slavery orator, delivered an address in the House of Representatives, to a large audience, April 6th, 1864. Among the distinguished persons present was President Lincoln, who was greatly interested. The following morning, Mr. Thompson and party . . . called at the White House. The President was alone when their names were announced, with the exception of myself. Dropping all business, he ordered the party to be immediately admitted. Greeting them cordially, the gentlemen took seats, and Mr. Thompson commenced conversation by referring to the condition of public sentiment in England in regard to the great conflict the nation was passing through. He said the aristocracy and the "money interest" were desirous of seeing the Union broken up, but that the great heart of the masses beat in sympathy with the North. They instinctively felt that the cause of liberty was bound up with our success in putting down the Rebellion, and the struggle was being watched with the deepest anxiety.

Mr. Lincoln thereupon said: "Mr. Thompson, the people of Great Britain, and of other foreign governments, were in one great error in reference to this conflict. They seemed to think that, the moment I was President, I had the power to abolish slavery, forgetting that, before I could have any power whatever, I had to take the oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and execute the laws as I found them. When the Rebellion broke out, my duty did not admit of a question. That was, first, by all strictly lawful means to endeavor to maintain the integrity of the government. I did not consider that I had a right to touch the 'State' institution of 'Slavery' until all other measures for restoring the Union had failed. . . . It seems clear, then, that in the last extremity, if any local institution threatened the existence of the Union, the Executive could not hesitate as to his duty. In our case, the moment came when I felt that slavery must die that the nation might live! I have sometimes used the illustration in this connection of a man with a diseased limb, and his surgeon. So long as there is a chance of the patient's restoration, the surgeon is solemnly bound to try to save both life an limb; but when the crisis comes, and the limb must be sacrificed as the only chance of saving the life, no honest man will hesitate.

. . . It is my conviction that, had the proclamation been issued even six months earlier than it was, public sentiment would not have sustained it. . . . The step, taken sooner, could not, in my judgment, have been carried out. A man watches his pear-tree day after day, impatient for the ripening of the fruit. Let him attempt to force the process, and he may spoil both fruit and tree. But let him patiently wait, and the ripe pear at length falls into his lap! We have seen this great revolution in public sentiment slowly but surely progressing, so that, when final action came, the opposition was not strong enough to defeat the purpose. I can now solemnly assert," he concluded, "that I have a clear conscience in regard to my action on this momentous question. I have done what no man could have helped doing, standing in my place."

[RJNorton]

(03-04-2018 03:12 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  It seems clear, then, that in the last extremity, if any local institution threatened the existence of the Union, the Executive could not hesitate as to his duty.

IMO, this is the same general concept as expressed in Andrew Jackson's Proclamation Regarding Nullification in 1832.

"The Constitution of the United States, then, forms a government, not a league, and whether it be formed by compact between the States, or in any other manner, its character is the same. It is a government in which all the people are represented, which operates directly on the people individually, not upon the States; they retained all the power they did not grant. But each State having expressly parted with so many powers as to constitute jointly with the other States a single nation, cannot from that period possess any right to secede, because such secession does not break a league, but destroys the unity of a nation, and any injury to that unity is not only a breach which would result from the contravention of a compact, but it is an offense against the whole Union. To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that the United States are not a nation."

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jack01.asp

[ELCore]

Great work all around.

[L Verge]

Thank you, Roger and David, for providing the entire context of what I consider a very meaningful quote - and one that I am delighted to learn actually came from Lincoln.

As I read both of your posts, I could not help thinking that both of these, along with the Jackson opinion, should be force fed to the malcontents who are disrupting the flow of U.S. government today. One would hope that they might see the significance of both the diseased limb as well as the necessity to wait for fruit to ripen. Right now, we have a full blight on the tree and the fruit - not just the beginnings of a disease in one part, imo.

[David Lockmiller]

(03-04-2018 03:51 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(03-04-2018 03:12 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  It seems clear, then, that in the last extremity, if any local institution threatened the existence of the Union, the Executive could not hesitate as to his duty.

IMO, this is the same general concept as expressed in Andrew Jackson's Proclamation Regarding Nullification in 1832.

"The Constitution of the United States, then, forms a government, not a league, and whether it be formed by compact between the States, or in any other manner, its character is the same. It is a government in which all the people are represented, which operates directly on the people individually, not upon the States; they retained all the power they did not grant. But each State having expressly parted with so many powers as to constitute jointly with the other States a single nation, cannot from that period possess any right to secede, because such secession does not break a league, but destroys the unity of a nation, and any injury to that unity is not only a breach which would result from the contravention of a compact, but it is an offense against the whole Union. To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that the United States are not a nation."

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jack01.asp

I agree that it is the same general concept, but I think that the constitutional argument made against secession by President Lincoln is much stronger and logically clear.

For Lincoln, his argument began with his Presidential oath of office: "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

According to Francis Carpenter, President Lincoln made the following constitutional argument on April 7, 1864 to Mr. George Thompson and party:

"[B]efore I could have any power whatever, I had to take the oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and execute the laws as I found them. When the Rebellion broke out, my duty did not admit of a question. That was, first, by all strictly lawful means to endeavor to maintain the integrity of the government. I did not consider that I had a right to touch the 'State' institution of 'Slavery' until all other measures for restoring the Union had failed. The paramount idea of the constitution is the preservation of the Union. It may not be specified in so many words, but that this was the idea of its founders is evident; for, without the Union, the constitution would be worthless. It seems clear, then, that in the last extremity, if any local institution threatened the existence of the Union, the Executive could not hesitate as to his duty. In our case, the moment came when I felt that slavery must die that the nation might live!"