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seaboard cities, inland across the States of Pennsylvania and Ohio, and the northern lakes. I believe that by these and other similar measures taken in that crisis, some of which were without any authority of law, the Government was saved from overthrow. I am not aware that a dollar of the public funds thus confided without authority of law, to unofficial persons, was either lost or wasted, although apprehensions of such misdirections occurred to me as objections to these extraordinary proceedings, and were necessarily overruled. I recall these transactions now because my attention has been directed to a resolution which was passed by the House of Representatives on the thirtieth of last month, which is in these words:

Resolved, that Simon Cameron, late Secretary of War, by intrusting Alexander Cummings with the control of large sums of the public money, and authority to purchase military supplies without restriction, without requiring from him any guarantee for the faithful performance of his duties, while the services of competent public officers were available, and by involving the government in a vast number of contracts with persons not legitimately engaged in the business pertaining to the subject matter of such contracts, especially in the purchase of arms for future delivery, has adopted a policy highly injurious to the public service, and deserves the censure of the House.

Congress will see that I should be wanting in candor and in justice if I should leave the censure expressed in this resolution to rest exclusively or chiefly upon Mr. Cameron. The same sentiment is unanimously entertained by the heads of the departments, who participated in the proceedings which the House of Representatives has censured. It is due to Mr. Cameron to say that although he fully approved the proceedings, they were not moved nor suggested by himself, and that not only the President, but all the other heads of departments were at least equally responsible with him for whatever error, wrong or fault was committed in the premises. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

This letter was in strict conformity with the position uniformly held by the President in regard to the responsibility of members of his cabinet for acts of the Administration. He always maintained that the proper duty of each Secretary was, to direct the details of every thing done within his own department, and to tender such suggestions, information, and advice to the President as he might solicit at his hands. But the duty and responsibility of deciding what line of policy

should be pursued, or what steps should be taken in any specific case, in his judgment, belonged exclusively to the President; and he was always willing and ready to assume it. This position has been widely and sharply assailed in various quarters as contrary to the precedents of our early history: but we believe it to be substantially in accordance with the theory of the Constitution upon this subject.

The progress of our armies in certain portions of the Southern States had warranted the suspension, at several ports, of the restrictions placed upon commerce by the blockade. On the 12th of May the President accordingly issued a proclamation declaring that the blockade of the ports of Beaufort, Port Royal, and New Orleans, should so far cease from the 1st of June, that commercial intercourse from those ports, except as to contraband of war, might be resumed, subject to the laws of the United States and the regulations of the Treasury Department.

On the 1st of July he issued another proclamation, in pursuance of the law of June 7th, designating the States and parts of States that were then in insurrection, so that the laws of the United States concerning the collection of taxes could not be enforced within their limits, and declaring that "the taxes legally chargeable upon real estate, under the act referred to, lying within the States or parts of States thus designated, together with a penalty of fifty per cent. of said taxes, should be a lien upon the tracts or lots of the same, severally charged, till paid."

On the 20th of October, finding it absolutely necessary to provide judicial proceedings for the State of Louisiana, a part of which was in our military possession, the President issued an order establishing a Provisional Court in the City of New Orleans, of which Charles A. Peabody was made Judge, with authority to try all causes, civil and criminal, in law, equity, revenue, and admiralty, and particularly to exercise all such

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power and jurisdiction as belongs to the Circuit and District Courts of the United States. His proceedings were to be conformed, so far as possible, to the course of proceedings and practice usual in the Courts of the United States of Louisiana, and his judgment was to be final and conclusive. Congress adjourned on the 17th of July, having adopted many measures of marked though minor importance, besides those to which we have referred, to aid in the prosecution of the war. Several Senators were expelled for adherence, direct or indirect, to the rebel cause; measures were taken to remove from the several departments of the Government employés more or less openly in sympathy with secession; Hayti and Liberia were recognized as independent republics; a treaty was negotiated and ratified with Great Britain which conceded the right, within certain limits, of searching suspected slavers carrying the American flag, and the most liberal grants in men and money were made to the Government for the prosecution of the war. The President had appointed military Governors for several of the Border States, where public sentiment was divided, enjoining them to protect the loyal citizens and to regard them as alone entitled to a voice in the direction of civil affairs.

Public sentiment throughout the loyal States sustained the action of Congress and the President as adapted to the emergency and well calculated to aid in the suppression of the rebellion. At the same time it was very evident that the conviction was rapidly gaining ground that Slavery was the cause of the Rebellion; that the paramount object of the conspirators against the Union was to obtain new guaranties for the institution; and that it was this interest alone which gave unity and vigor to the rebel cause. A very active and influential party at the North had insisted from the outset that the most direct way of crushing the Rebellion was by crushing Slavery, and they had urged upon the President the adoption

of a policy of immediate and unconditional em the only thing necessary to bring into the ranks armies hundreds of thousands of enfranchised as the great mass of the people of the Norther needed this stimulus of an appeal to their mo After the adjournment of Congress these demand more clamorous and importunate. The Presid moned to avail himself of the opportunity offere sage of the Confiscation Bill, and to decree the tion of every slave belonging to a rebel maste mands soon assumed, with the more impatient ate portion of the friends of the Administratio complaint and condemnation, and the President with gross and culpable remissness in the discha imposed upon him by the Act of Congress. T bodied with force and effect in a letter addressed ident by Hon. Horace Greeley, and published i Tribune of the 19th of August, to which Presid made the following reply:

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If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them.

If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them.

My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery.

If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it— if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it--and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.

What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I believe doing more will help the

cause.

I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my views of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.

Yours,

A. LINCOLN.

It was impossible to mistake the President's meaning after this letter, or to have any doubt as to the policy by which he expected to re-establish the authority of the Constitution over the whole territory of the United States. His "paramount object," in every thing he did and in every thing he abstained from doing, was to "save the Union." He regarded all the power conferred on him by Congress in regard to slavery, as having been conferred to aid him in the accomplishment of that object and he was resolved to wield those powers so as best, according to his own judgment, to aid in its attainment. He forebore, therefore, for a long time, the issue of such a proclamation as he was authorized to make by the sixth section of the Confiscation act of Congress-awaiting the developments of public sentiment on the subject, and being espe