On the recordAugust 22, 1862
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and not either to save or to destroy slavery.
Source
gutenberg.orgAbraham Lincoln: “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and not either to save or to destroy slavery.”
Editor's note · Context
In a widely published letter to Horace Greeley, Lincoln declares his primary goal in the Civil War is the preservation of the United States, not the immediate fate of slavery.
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He said, with a great deal of emphasis, and with an expression of countenance I shall never forget: "When a man is sincerely penitent for his misdeeds, and gives satisfactory evidence of the same, he can safely be pardoned, and there is no…
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If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything.
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