couraging and paralyzing both white and black, has any tendency to bring Louisiana into proper practical relations with the Union, I have so far been unable to perceive it. If, on the contrary, we recognize and sustain the new government of Louisiana, the converse of all this is made true. We encourage the hearts and nerve the arms of the 12,000 to adhere to their work, and argue for it, and proselyte for it, and fight for it, and feed it, and grow it, and ripen it to a complete success. The colored man, too, in seeing all united for him, is inspired with vigilance, and energy, and daring, to the same end. Grant that he desires the elective franchise, will he not attain it sooner by sav ing the already advanced steps toward it than by running backward over them? Concede that the new government of Louisiana is only to what it should be as the egg is to the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it.

Again, if we reject Louisiana, we also reject one vote in favor of the proposed amendment to the national Constitution. To meet this proposition, it has been argued that no more than three fourths of those States which have not attempted secession are necessary to validly ratify the amendment. I do not commit myself against this further than to say that such a ratification would be questionable, and sure to be persistently questioned, while a ratification by three fourths of all the States would be unquestioned and unquestionable. I repeat the question: Can Louisiana be brought into proper practical relation with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new State government? What has been said of Louisi ana will apply generally to other States. And yet so great peculiarities pertain to each State, and such im

portant and sudden changes occur in the same State, and withal so new and unprecedented is the whole case, that no exclusive and inflexible plan can safely be prescribed as to details and collaterals. Such exclusive and inflexible plan would surely become a new entanglement. Important principles may and must be inflexible. In the present situation, as the phrase goes, it may be my duty to make some new announcement to the people of the South. I am considering, and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will be proper.

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

BY WALT WHITMAN.

I.

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weathered every wrack, the prize we sought is wor ;
The port is near,
the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

II.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up

for you the flag is flung, for you the bugle trills; For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths, for you the shores a-crowd

ing;

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head;

It is some dream that on the deck

You've fallen cold and dead.

III.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;

The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done; From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores! and ring, O bells!

But I, with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies

Fallen cold and dead.

LINCOLN'S BIRTHDAY.

MATERIALS FOR SKETCH OF LINCOLN'S LIFE.

THE fullest Life of Lincoln, and the one which makes the strongest claim for authority, is that written by the President's private secretaries, John George Nicolay and John Hay, who have also edited a full collection of Lincoln's speeches, state papers, letters, and miscellaneous writings. Both these works are issued by The Century Co., New York.

Special importance attaches to those lives and sketches which have been written by men who personally knew Lincoln, and who, writing often in close proximity to the events narrated, were likely to speak with vividness if not always with impartiality. The incompleted Life by Ward H. Lamon, who was long associated with Lincoln, covers the period up to the date of his inauguration in 1861. It is, however, now out of print. Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life, by W. H. Herndon, who was Lincoln's law partner and long intimate with him, is published by D. Appleton & Co., New York, and is of great value. A Life by Dr. J. G. Holland deals with the personality of the subject, and has a popular aim. Six Months at the White House, or The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln, is an exceedingly interesting volume of memoranda made by Frank B. Carpenter when engaged on a painting of Lincoln and his Cabinet. Reminiscences by distinguished men who were contemporaries and in many cases near associates of Lincoln were prepared at the instance of Allen Thorndike Rice, editor of the North American Review, and afterward collected by him into a volume of 656 pages. and published in 1886.