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Letter to Arnold Fischel (December 14, 1861)

Contributing Editors for this page include Jonas Sherr

Ranking

#111 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

“I find that there are several particulars in which the present law in regard to Chaplains is supposed to be deficient, all of which I now design presenting to the appropriate Committee of Congress. I shall try to have a new law broad enough to cover what is desired by you in behalf of the Israelites.” 

On This Date

HD Daily Report, December 14, 1861

The Lincoln Log, December 14, 1861

Close Readings

Jonas Sherr, “Understanding Lincoln” blog post (via Quora), September 15, 2013

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How Historians Interpret

“On December 6, 1861, the BODAI [Board of Delegates of the American Israelites] prepared a beautiful ‘Memorial,’ penned with a fair hand, addressed to the Senate and the House of Representatives.  Presumably, Rabbi Fischel would carry this ‘Memorial’ to the nation’s capital.  The tone of the remonstrance was firm.  The document emphasized that the congressional act concerning military chaplains excluded from ‘the Office of Chaplain in the service of the United States ‘regular ordained ministers’ of the Jewish faith.’  The writers insisted that the current law was ‘prejudicial discrimination against a particular class of citizens, on account of their religious belief.’  Moreover, the law established a ‘religious test,’ which manifestly contravened the protections afforded the nation’s citizens by the Constitution. . .Despite reports to the contrary, President Lincoln agreed to see Rabbi Fischel on December 11, 1861.  From Fischel’s perspective, the meeting went quite well.  Lincoln even asked him to return the next day to discuss the matter further. . .On December 15, 1861, Rabbi Fischel received a short but gratifying letter from Abraham Lincoln.  He sat down on the spot and penned a buoyant letter to Henry I. Hart (1816-1863), president of the BODAI.  Fischel wanted Hart and the rest of the BODAI to read Lincoln’s words for themselves, so he quoted the entire text of Lincoln’s letter verbatim.  Had the rabbi not done so, we might never have been able to document Lincoln’s personal involvement in the controversy, since the original of Lincoln’s note appears to have been lost. . .Lincoln kept his word.  Five months later, Congress passed new legislation that would enable ministers of the Jewish faith to serve as chaplains in the U.S. military.”

Gary Phillip Zola, We Called Him Rabbi Abraham: Lincoln and American Jewry, a Documentary History (Illinois: SIU Press, 2014) 82-86

 

“Hoping to create a test case based strictly on a chaplain’s religion and not his lack of ordination [as in the case of Michael Allen, an un-ordained Jewish minister who was fired from his chaplaincy post in 1861], Colonel Max Friedman and the officers of Cameron’s Dragoons then elected an ordained rabbi, the Reverend Arnold Fischel of New York’s Congregation Shearith Israel, to serve as regimental chaplain-designate.  When Fischel, a Dutch immigrant, applied for certification as chaplain, the secretary of war, none other than the Simon Cameron for whom the regiment was named, complied with the law and rejected his application.  The rejection of Fischel finally stimulated American Jewry to action.  The American Jewish press let its readers know that Congress had limited the chaplaincy to Christians and argued for equal treatment for Judaism before the law.  This initiative irritated a handful of Christian organizations, including the YMCA, which resolved to lobby Congress against the appointment of Jewish chaplains.  To counter their efforts, the Board of Delegates of American Israelites, one of the earliest Jewish communal defense agencies, recruited Reverend Fischel to live in Washington, minister to wounded Jewish soldiers in that city’s military hospitals and lobby President Abraham Lincoln to reverse the chaplaincy law. . . Armed with letters of introduction from Jewish and non-Jewish political leaders, Fischel met on December 11, 1861 with President Lincoln to press the case for Jewish chaplains. . . According to Fischel, Lincoln asked several questions about the chaplaincy issue, ‘fully admitted the justice of my remarks. . .and agreed that something ought to be done to meet this case.’  Lincoln promised Fischel that he would submit a new law to Congress ‘broad enough to cover what is desired by you in behalf of the Israelites.'”

Michael Felberg, editor, Blessings of Freedom: Chapters in American Jewish History (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav Publishing House, 2002), 95

NOTE TO READERS

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new “Understanding Lincoln” online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http://new.livestream.com/gilderlehrman/lincoln

 

Searchable Text

Executive Mansion,
December 14, 1861.
 
Rev. Dr. A. Fischel 
My dear Sir: 
I find that there are several particulars in which the present law in regard to Chaplains is supposed to be deficient, all of which I now design presenting to the appropriate Committee of Congress. I shall try to have a new law broad enough to cover what is desired by you in behalf of the Israelites. 
Yours truly,
A. LINCOLN.

Letter to Abraham Jonas (July 21, 1860)

Contributing Editors for this page include Jonas Sherr

Ranking

#144 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

“I suppose as good, or even better, men than I may have been in American, or Know-Nothing lodges; but in point of fact, I never was in one, at Quincy, or elsewhere. I was never in Quincy but one day and two nights, while Know-Nothing lodges were in existence, and you were with me that day and both those nights.”

On This Date

HD Daily Report, July 21, 1860

The Lincoln Log, July 21, 1860

Close Readings

Jonas Sherr, “Understanding Lincoln” blog post (via Quora), Sep. 29, 2013 

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How Historians Interpret

“In 1860, Lincoln recalled his Quincy visit in a letter to Jonas: ‘It was in 1854, when I spoke in some Hall there,  and after the speaking, you, with others, took me to, an oyster saloon, passed an hour there, and you walked with me to, and parted with me at, the Quincy-House, quite late at night. I left by stage for Naples before day-light in the morning, having come in by the same route, after dark, the evening previous to the speaking, when I found you waiting at the Quincy House to meet me…’ He went on to recall that it was this visit that led to a charge circulated by Congressman William A. Richardson that Lincoln had attended a Know-Nothing lodge in Quincy. Lincoln wanted to refute the allegation but without his personal involvement.”

–Lewis E. Lehrman, Lincoln At Peoria: The Turning Point (Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books, 2008), 361.

 

“While it is possible to interpret these recollected accounts as confirmation that Lincoln resisted the Know-Nothings and saw himself primarily as a Whig, that interpretation would miss an important nuance. Lincoln opposed nativism but worked with nativists. In other words, the meeting itself had significance. What Lincoln avoided in 1854 was any open fusion between Whigs and Know-Nothings, which he feared would alienate strongly antislavery German immigrants such as George Schneider and potentially divide the opposition forces. As his concern about Benjamin Edwards and his discussion with Ballinger indicated, he certainly did not ignore the Know-Nothings who considered him an ally. Lincoln may have even accepted a secret arrangement with Know-Nothings but was at the very least willing to play down, or even abandon, his Whig identity in order to forge a broad-based coalition with them that might finally defeat the Democrats and, in particular, their statewide leader and his longtime nemesis, Senator Stephen Douglas.’

–Matthew Pinsker, “Not Always Such a Whig: Abraham Lincoln’s Partisan Realignment in the 1850s,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 29, no. 2 (2008): 27-46.

 

 

NOTE TO READERS

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new “Understanding Lincoln” online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http://new.livestream.com/gilderlehrman/lincoln

 

Searchable Text

Confidential
 
Springfield, Ills.
July 21, 1860
 
Hon. A. Jonas
My dear Sir:
Yours of the 20th. is received. I suppose as good, or even better, men than I may have been in American, or Know-Nothing lodges; but in point of fact, I never was in one, at Quincy, or elsewhere. I was never in Quincy but one day and two nights, while Know-Nothing lodges were in existence, and you were with me that day and both those nights. I had never been there before in my life; and never afterwards, till the joint debate with Douglas in 1858. It was in 1854, when I spoke in some Hall there,  and after the speaking, you, with others, took me to, an oyster saloon, passed an hour there, and you walked with me to, and parted with me at, the Quincy-House, quite late at night. I left by stage for Naples before day-light in the morning, having come in by the same route, after dark, the evening previous to the speaking, when I found you waiting at the Quincy House to meet me. A few days after I was there, Richardson,  as I understood, started this same story about my having been in a Know-Nothing lodge. When I heard of the charge, as I did soon after, I taxed my recollection for some incident which could have suggested it; and I remembered that on parting with you the last night, I went to the Office of the Hotel to take my stage passage for the morning, was told that no stage office for that line was kept there, and that I must see the driver, before retiring, to insure his calling for me in the morning; and a servant was sent with me to find the driver, who after taking me a square or two, stopped me, and stepped perhaps a dozen steps farther, and in my hearing called to some one, who answered him apparantly from the upper part of a building, and promised to call with the stage for me at the Quincy House. I returned and went to bed; and before day the stage called and took me. This is all.
That I never was in a Know-Nothing lodge in Quincy, I should expect, could be easily proved, by respectable men, who were always in the lodges and never saw me there. An affidavit of one or two such would put the matter at rest.
And now, a word of caution. Our adversaries think they can gain a point, if they could force me to openly deny this charge, by which some degree of offence would be given to the Americans. For this reason, it must not publicly appear that I am paying any attention to the charge. 
Yours truly 
A. LINCOLN

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