Remarks upon Sectionalism to Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Delegations.

On March 5, 1861, two delegations, one of citizens of Pennsylvania, and one of citizens of Massachusetts, called upon President Lincoln with assurances popular support. His responses were as follows:

TO THE PENNSYLVANIA DELEGATION.

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Allusion has been made to the hope that you entertain that you have a President and a government. In respect to that I wish to say to you that in the position I have assumed I wish to do more than I have ever given reason to believe I would do. I do not wish you to believe that I assume to be any better than others who have gone before me. I prefer rather to have it understood that, if we ever have a government on the principles we profess, we should remember, while we exercise our opinion, that others have also rights to the exercise of their opinions, and that we should endeavor to allow these rights, and act in such a manner as to create no bad feeling. I hope we have a government and a President. I hope, and wish it to be understood, that there may be no allusion to unpleasant differences.

We must remember that the people of all the States are entitled to all the privileges and immunities of the citizens of the several States. We should bear this in mind, and act in such a way as to say nothing insulting and irritating. I would inculcate this idea, so that we may not, like Pharisees, set ourselves up to be better than other people.

TO THE MASSACHUSETTS DELEGATION.

I am thankful for this renewed assurance of kind feeling and confidence, and the support of the old Bay State, in so far as you, Mr. Chairman, have expressed, in behalf of those whom you represent, your sanction of what I have enunciated in my inaugural address. This is very grateful to my feelings. The object was one of great delicacy, in presenting views at the opening of an administration under the peculiar circumstances attending my entrance upon the official duties connected with the government. I studied all the points with great anxiety, and presented them with whatever of ability and sense of justice I could bring to bear. That it met the approbation of our good friends in Massachusetts, I am exceedingly gratified, and I hope it will meet the approbation of friends everywhere. I am thankful for the expressions of those who have voted with us; and, like every man of you, I like them as certainly as I do others. As the President in the administration of the government, I hope to be man enough not to know one citizen of the United States from another, or one section from another. I shall be gratified to have good friends of Massachusetts and others who have thus far supported me in these national views still to support me in carrying them out.

Remarks on Executive Policy to a Committee from the Virginia Convention.

On April 13, 1861, William Ballard Preston, Alexander H. H. Stuart, and George W. Randolph waited on President Lincoln as a committee from the Vir

ginia Convention, and presented the request of the Convention (authorized April 8, 1861) that he communicate to it "the policy which the Federal Executive intends to pursue in regard to the Confederate States." The President replied:

In answer I have to say that, having at the beginning of my official term expressed my intended policy as plainly as I was able, it is with deep regret and some mortification I now learn that there is great and injurious uncertainty in the public mind as to what that policy is, and what course I intend to pursue. Not having as yet seen occasion to change, it is now my purpose to pursue the course marked out in the inaugural address. I commend a careful consideration of the whole document as the best expression I can give of my purposes.

As I then and therein said, I now repeat: "The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what is necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere." By the words "property and places belonging to the government," I chiefly allude to the military posts and property which were in the possession of the government when it came to my hands.

But if, as now appears to be true, in pursuit of a purpose to drive the United States authority from these places, an unprovoked assault has been made upon Fort Sumter, I shall hold myself at liberty to repossess, if I can, like places which had been seized before the government was devolved upon me. And in every event I shall, to

the extent of my ability, repel force by force. In case it proves true that Fort Sumter has been assaulted, as is reported, I shall perhaps cause the United States mails to be withdrawn from all the States which claim to have seceded, believing that the commencement of actual war against the government justifies and possibly demands this.

I scarcely need to say that I consider the military posts and property situated within the States which claim to have seceded as yet belonging to the government of the United States as much as they did before the supposed secession.

Whatever else I may do for the purpose, I shall not attempt to collect the duties and imposts by any armed invasion of any part of the country; not meaning by this, however, that I may not land a force deemed necessary to relieve a fort upon a border of the country.

From the fact that I have quoted a part of the inaugural address, it must not be inferred that I repudiate any other part, the whole of which I reaffirm, except so far as what I now say of the mails may be regarded as a modification.

Conference on Compensated Emancipation with Border State Delegations.

On March 10, 1862, delegations from the border slave States of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri waited on President Lincoln in response to his request for a conference upon compensated emancipation, the subject of his recent message to Congress (see Message to Congress, March 6, 1862).

At the close of the conference the Hon. J. W. Crisfield, a delegate from Maryland, retired to his room and wrote out his recollections of what had taken place.

The accuracy of his report was attested by three other delegates. With some slight editing of the form, though not the substance of his statements, Mr. Crisfield's account is as follows:

The President said that, since he had sent in his message of the 6th, several of the gentlemen present had visited him, but had avoided any allusion to the message, and he therefore inferred that its import had been misunderstood, and was regarded as inimical to the interests we represented; and therefore he had resolved to talk with us, and disabuse our minds of that erroneous opinion.

He disclaimed any intent to injure the interests or wound the sensibilities of the slave States. On the contrary, he declared that his purpose was to protect the one and respect the other. We were, he said, engaged in a terrible, wasting, and tedious war; immense armies were in the field, and must continue there as long as the war should last; these armies came of necessity, into contact with slaves in the States we represented, and, as they advanced, would be brought into contact with the slaves of other States. Slaves came, and would continue to come to the camps, thus keeping up continual irritation. He was constantly annoyed by conflicting and antagonistic complaints. On the one side a certain class complained if the slave was not protected by the army; persons were frequently found who, participating in these views, acted in a way unfriendly to the slaveholder. On the other hand, slaveholders complained that their rights were interfered with, their slaves were induced to abscond and were protected within the lines. These complaints were numerous, loud, and deep.