366 Days in Abraham Lincoln's Presidency by Stephen A. Wynalda

Author:Stephen A. Wynalda
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2016-04-13T15:12:53+00:00

Read backwards with emphasis on phonetics rather than spelling, and the meaning emerges.

AUGUST 26

The Conklin Letter

On this Wednesday in 1863, Lincoln sent an old Springfield friend, James Conklin, a letter that would be widely quoted long after its reading at a Springfield rally.

The Republican rally had been organized as a show of loyalist unity against the growing Copperhead (Peace Democrats) influence in the Midwest. Conklin invited Lincoln to come to the September 3 rally and Lincoln was tempted to make a trip home. But Lincoln could not break away. He, however, decided to address his critics with a letter to be read at the rally in his stead.

“There are those who are dissatisfied with me,” Lincoln wrote. “You desire peace; and you blame me that you do not have it.” Lincoln then outlined the three ways to attain peace, “force of arms;” “give up the Union;” or “some imaginable compromise.” The first Lincoln was pursuing, the second he could not accept, and the rebels would not accept a “peace compromise.”

“But to be plain, you are dissatisfied with me about the negro,” Lincoln continued. “You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you.” Lincoln explained that every slave taken from the rebels made them weaker and the Union stronger. Lincoln added that peace, once achieved, would prove that “there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet … . And then, there will be some black men who can remember that with silent tongue, and clenched teeth and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on this great consummation.”

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