THE WORDS OF LINCOLN

33333

as to what is going to be the course of the government towards the Southern States after the rebellion shall have been suppressed, the Executive deems it proper to say, it will be his purpose then, as ever, to be guided by the Constitution and the laws; and that he will probably have no different understanding of the powers and duties of the Federal Government relatively to the rights of the States and the people, under the Constitution, than that expressed in the inaugural address.

He desires to preserve the government, that it may be administered for all as it was administered by the men who made it.

Loyal citizens everywhere have the right to claim this of their government, and the government has no right to withhold or neglect it. It is not perceived that, in giving it, there is any coercion, any conquest, or any subjugation,' in any just sense of those terms.

The Constitution provides, and all the States have accepted the provision, that "the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government." But if a State may lawfully go out of the Union, having done so, it may also discard the republican form of government; so that to prevent its going it is an indispensable means to the end of maintaining the guarantee mentioned; and when an end is lawful and obligatory, the indispensable means to it are also lawful and obligatory. It was with the deepest regret that the Executive found the duty of employing the war power in defence of the government forced upon him. He could but perform this duty or surrender the existence of the government.

No compromise by public servants could in this case be a cure; not that compromises are not often proper, but that no popular government can long survive a marked precedent, that those who carry an election can only save the government from immediate destruction by giving up the main

1. To what is allusion here made?

point upon which the people gave the election. The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.

As a private citizen the Executive' could not have consented that these institutions shall perish; much less could he in betrayal of so vast and so sacred a trust as these free people had confided to him. He felt that he had no moral right to shrink, nor even to count the chances of his own life, in what might follow. In full view of his great responsibility he has so far done what he has deemed his duty. You will now, according to your own judgment, do yours. He sincerely hopes that your views and your action may so accord with his as to assure all faithful citizens, who have been disturbed in their rights, of a certain and speedy restoration to them under the Constitution and the laws. And having thus chosen our course, without guile and with a pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God and go forward without fear and with manly hearts.

Extract from Message of December 1862

THE NECESSITY OF NATIONAL UNION

A nation may be said to consist of its territory, its people, and its laws. The territory is the only part which is of certain duration. "One generation passeth away and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever."

That portion of the earth's surface which is owned and inhabited by the people of the United States is well adapted to be the home of one national family, and it is not well adapted for two or more. Its vast extent and variety of climate and productions are of advantage in this age for one people, whatever they may have been in former ages. Steam, telegraphs, and intelligence have brought these to be an advantageous combination for one united people.

There is no line, straight or crooked, suitable for a national boundary upon which to divide. Trace through, from East to

1. Why does he speak of himself in the third person? .

West, upon the line between the free and slave country, and we shall find a little more than one third of its length are rivers easy to be crossed, and populated, or soon to be populated, thickly on both sides; while nearly all its remaining length are merely surveyors' lines, over which people may walk back and forth without any consciousness of their presence. No part of this line can be made any more difficult to pass by writing it down on paper or parchment as a national boundary. The fact of separation, if it comes, gives up on the part of the seceding section the fugitive-slave clause, along with all other constitutional obligations upon the section seceded from, while I should expect no treaty stipulations would ever be made to take its place.

But there is another difficulty. The great interior region, bounded east by the Alleghanies, north by the British dominions, west by the Rocky Mountains, and south by the line along which the culture of corn and cotton meets, and which includes part of Virginia, part of Tennessee, all of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, and the Territories of Dakota, Nebraska, and a part of Colorado, already has above ten million people, and will have fifty million within fifty years, if not prevented by any political folly or mistake.

It contains more than one third of the territory owned by the United States, certainly more than one million square miles. One half as populous as Massachusetts already is, it would have more than seventy-five million people. A glance at the map shows that, territorially speaking, it is the great body of the Republic. The other ports are but marginal borders to it, the magnificent region sloping west from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific being the deepest and also the richest in undeveloped resources.

In the production of provisions, grains, grasses, and all which proceeds from them, this great interior region is naturally one of the most important in the world. Ascertain from statistics the small proportion of the region which has as yet been brought into cultivation, and also the large and rapidly

increasing amount of its products, and we shall be overwhelmed with the magnitude of the prospects presented.

And yet this region has no sea-coast, touches no ocean anywhere. As part of one nation, its people may find, and may forever find, their way to Europe by New York, to South America and Africa by New Orleans, and to Asia by San Francisco. But separate our common country into two nations, as designed by the present rebellion, and every man of this great interior region is thereby cut off from some one or more of these outlets, not perhaps by a physical barrier, but by embarrassing and onerous trade regulations. * * * * *

I do not forget the gravity which should characterize a paper addressed to the Congress of the nation by the Chief Magistrate of the nation. Nor do I forget that some of you are my seniors, nor that many of you have more experience than I in the conduct of public affairs. Yet I trust that, in view of the great responsibility resting upon me, you will perceive no want of respect to yourselves in any undue earnestness I may seem to display. *****

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is entirely new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We-even we here -hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free-honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth. may succeed, this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful,

Other means

generous, just—a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.

Recommendation to Congress, March 6, 1862, in Regard to a Gradual and Compensated Emancipation1

I recommend the adoption of a joint resolution by your honorable bodies, which shall be substantially as follows:

Resolved, That the United States ought to co-operate with any State which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State in its discretion, to compensate for the inconvenience, both public and private, produced by such change of system."

If the proposition in the resolution does not meet the approval of Congress and the country, there is the end; but if it does command such approval, I deem it important that the States and people immediately interested should be at once distinctly notified of the fact, so that they may begin to consider whether to accept or reject it.

The Federal would find its highest interest in such a measure as one of the most efficient means of self-preservation. The leaders of the existing insurrection entertain the hope that this government will ultimately be forced to acknowledge the independence of some part of the disaffected region, and that all the slave States north of such part will then say, "The Union for which we have struggled being already gone, we now choose to go with the southern section."

To deprive them of this hope substantially ends the rebellion; and the initiation of emancipation completely deprives them of it, as to all of the States initiating it. The point is not that all the States tolerating slavery would very soon, if at all, initiate emancipation, but that while the offer is equally made to all, the more northern shall, by such initiation, make it certain to the more southern that in no event will the former ever join the latter in their proposed confederacy. I say

1. Compare this method of emancipation with that adopted by England and Russia.

2. Derivation and original meaning.