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to his enemies. His heart was touched by the death of Jackson, and he said to a friend' who praised the dead: "I honor you for your generosity to one who, though contending against us in a guilty cause, was a gallant man. Let us forget his sins over his fresh made grave.”

1. Col. J. W. Forney, editor.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE TIDE TURNS.

THE CONSCRIPTION.- WEST VIRGINIA ADMITTED. THE WAR POWERS. SUSPENSION OP HABEAS CORPUS.-CASE OF VALLANDIGHAM.-GRANT'S CAPTURE OF VICKSBURG.— GETTYSBURG.— LINCOLN'S SPEECH.

war.

We now approach the turning point in this great civil Up to 1863, the fortunes of the conflict had been so varied; victory and defeat had so alternated, that neither party to the struggle could point to anything absolutely decisive. After the Union defeats at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the world of spectators seemed to think the probabilities of success were with the rebels. But in the summer of 1863, the tide turned, and a series of successes followed the national armies, which rendered their triumph. only a question of time. Before entering upon a narration of these successes, we must turn for a brief space from the camp and battle field to the halls of Congress.

During this entire conflict, public opinion was guided, and largely controlled, by the pen and the tongue of the President. No voice was so potent as his, either in Congress or elsewhere, to create and guide public opinion. His administration was continually assailed by the democratic party, and criticised, often with asperity and injustice, by the leading members of his own party. The great leaders of the press were fault-finding, unjust, and often unfriendly. This threw upon him, in addition to all his other great difficulties and cares, the burden of explaining and defending the measures of his administration. He made many speeches,

and wrote many letters, in addition to his messages and state papers. His frankness and sincerity, his unselfish patriotism, and his great ability as a speaker and writer, were never more strikingly illustrated than in those speeches and writings.

When Congress convened, in December, 1862, the President communicated the fact of his proclamation of the 22d of September. The absolute necessity of national union. was never presented in a more statesmanlike manner than in this message. He says:

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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 its variety of climate and productions, are of advantage, in this age, for one people, whatever they might have been in former ages. Steam, telegraphs, and intelligence, have brought these to be an advantageous combination for one united people.

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There is no line, straight or crooked, suitable for a national boundary, upon which to divide. Trace through, from East to 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 upon both sides; while nearly all its remaining length are merely surveyor's 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 Alleghenies, 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 part of Colorado, already has above ten million people, and will have fifty millions within fifty years, if not prevented by any political

folly or mistake. It contains more than one-third of the country owned by the United States, certainly more than one million square miles. Once 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 parts 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 proceed 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 prospect 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."

Lincoln uttered the convictions, the sentiments, and the unwavering determination of a vast majority of the people of the West, when he declared that the "portion of the earth's surface called the United States is adapted to be the home of one national family, and not for two or more."

Lincoln had come to be recognized as not only the leading mind of the Mississippi Valley, but of the republic, and he declared with authority that there could be "no peace except on the basis of national unity." He closes this most statesmanlike paper with these words:

"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 inadeThe occasion is piled high with difficulty,

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quate to the stormy present.

and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is 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. Other means may succeed, this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just-a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless."

At this session of Congress an enrollment bill providing that all able bodied citizens, black as well as white, should be liable to military duty, and subject to be drafted into service, was passed. The Confederates had nearly a year before passed a much more stringent conscription law. The democratic party opposed vehemently the bill. Senator Kennedy, of Maryland, said: "I stand in the midst of the ruins of the republic. I deplore that I can see no hope from the black gloomy cloud of convulsion and ruin by which we are surrounded." 1

A law was also passed at this session admitting West Virginia into the Union, upon condition of the abolition of slavery. The great civil war called into exercise, by the Executive and Congress, a class of powers called war powers; powers dormant until the exigencies arose demanding their exercise, and of the existence of which many of the statesmen of the republic had been unconscious. The peo

ple, educated to an appreciation of the full value of the quiet securities of liberty embraced in Magna Charta, and still more perfectly in the Constitution of the United States, were always jealous of the exercise of extraordinary powThose safeguards of liberty: freedom of the press, liberty of speech, personal security protected by the writ of

ers.

1. Congressional Globe, 37th Congress, p. 1374.

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