A five legged dog?

"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."

Abraham Lincoln, 16th President, 1861-1865 Lincoln's main goal in pursuing the Civil War was to keep the union together. He, like other Presidents before him, did not personally favor slavery. To gain support, he had to convince the nation that freeing the slaves would preserve the union, besides for the obvious moral reasons. His insight was that freeing the slaves would cripple the south's ability to support itself in the war effort. Since the slaves worked the farms, they enabled the "free" men to fight. The confederates would have to re-allocate manpower away form the war effort to continue to support itself. Lincoln was concerned that a proclamation that the slaves would be freed may not in fact liberate them. There were logistical questions and debates as to what would and should happen once they were declared free. This saying may have arisen from the discussion of what might be the true results of issuing The Emancipation Proclamation. (http://timpangos.wordpress.com/2007/05/23/lincoln-quote-sourced-calfs-tail-not-dogs-tail)