Can the Emancipation Proclamation be Recalled? (1863)

The Friend. Honolulu: December, 1863

Can the Emancipation Proclamation be Recalled?—President Lincoln, in his famous letter to his fellow citizens of Illinois, employs the following language in regard to the Proclamation: 

"But the proclamation, as law, either is valid or is not valid. If it is not valid it needs no retraction. If it is valid it cannot be retracted any more than the dead can be brought to life. Some of you profess to think its retraction would operate favorably for the Union. Why better after the retraction than before the issue? There was more than a year and a half of trial to suppress the rebellion before the proclamation was issued; the last one hundred days of which passed under an explicit notice that it was coming unless averted by those in revolt returning to their allegiance. 

"The war has certainly progressed as favorably for us since the issue of the proclamation as before. I know, as fully as one can know the opinions of others, that some of the commanders of our armies in the field, who have given us our most important successes, believe the emancipation policy and the use of colored troops constitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebellion, and that at least one of those important successes could not have been achieved when it was, but for the aid of black soldiers. 

"Among the commanders holding these views are some who have never bad any affinity with what is called Abolitionism, or with Republican party politics, but who hold them purely as military opinions. I submit these opinions as being entitled to some weight against the objections often urged that emancipation and arming the blacks are unwise as military measures and were not adopted as such in good faith." |