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church in St. Louis shall be decided by the President of the United States?"

Now, all this sounds very strangely; and, withal, a little as if you gentlemen making the application do not understand. the case alike-one affirming that this doctor is enjoying all the rights of a civilian, and another pointing out to me what will secure his release! On the 2d of January last, I wrote to Gen. Curtis in relation to Mr. Dick's order upon Dr. McPheeter's; and, as I suppose the Doctor is enjoying all the rights of a civilian, I only quote that part of my letter which relates to the church. It was as follows: "But I must add that the United States Government must not, as by this order, undertake to run the churches. When an individual, in a church or out of it, becomes dangerous to the public interest, he must be checked; but the churches, as such, must take care of themselves. It will not do for the United States to appoint trustees, supervisors, or other agents for the churches."

This letter going to Gen. Curtis, then in command, I supposed, of course, it was obeyed, especially as I heard no further complaint from Dr. Mc. or his friends for nearly an entire year. I have never interfered, nor thought of interfering, as to who shall or shall not preach in any church; nor have I knowingly or believingly tolerated any one else to interfere by my authority. If any one is so interfering by color of my authority, I would like to have it specially made known to me.

If, after all, what is now sought is to have me put Dr. Mc. back over the heads of a majority of his own congregation, that, too, will be declined. I will not have control of any church or any side. A. LINCOLN.

On the 16th of June, President Lincoln, by invitation, attended the great Fair, for the benefit of the Sanitary Commission, at Philadelphia. His reception was such as to leave no doubt that he had the cordial affection of the people of that city. After two or three hours spent by him (Mrs. Lincoln being also present), in passing through the rooms of the fair, which contained rare works of art and varieties of objects attractive to the intellectual taste, he was conducted to the supper-room, where Edward Everett and other distinguished guests joined him at the table. His health having been proposed, the President made the following remarks:

War, at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and duration, is one of the most terrible. It has

deranged business, totally in some locations, and partially in all locations. It has produced a national debt and taxation unprecedented, at least, in this country. It has carried mourning to almost every home, until it may almost be said that "the heavens are hung with black."

Yet the war continues, and several relieving coincidents have accompanied it from the beginning, which have not been known, as I understand it, in former wars in the history of the world. The Sanitary Commission, with all its benevolent labors; the Christian Commission, with all its benevolent and Christian labors, and the various places, arrangements, institutions, so to speak, that have contributed to the comfort and relief of the soldier. You have two of these places in your city: the Cooper Shop and the Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloons; and, lastly, these fairs, which, I believe, began only in last August, if I mistake not, at Chicago, then at Boston, at Cincinnati, at Brooklyn, at New York, at Baltimore, and at the present at St. Louis, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, and, perhaps, at some other places which I do not remember.

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The motives and objects that lie at the bottom of all these are the most worthy; for, say what you will, after all, the most is due to the soldier, who takes his life in his hand, and to fight the battles of his country. [Loud cheering.] In what is contributed to his comfort as he passes to and fro, from city to city; in what is contributed to him when he is sick and wounded; in whatever shape it comes, whether from the fair hand of woman, or from whatever source it may, it is much, very much. But I think that there is still that which is of much value to him, in the continual reminders he sees in the newspapers, that while he is absent he is yet remembered by the loved ones at home. [Cheers.]

Another view of these various institutions, if I may so call them, is worthy of consideration, I think. They are voluntary contributions, given zealously and earnestly, on top of all the disturbances of business, of all the disorders, of all the taxations, and of all the burdens that the war has imposed upon us, giving proof that the national resources are not at all exhausted; that the national spirit of patriotism is even firmer and stronger than at the commencement of the war.

It is a pertinent question, often asked in the mind privately, and from one to another, when is the war to end? Surely I feel as great an interest in this question as any other can. But I do not wish to name the day, or the month, or the year with which it is to end. I do not wish to run the risk of seeing the time come without our being ready for the end, for fear of disappointment, because the time had come and not the end.

The

Governor by the President, in each State declared to be in
rebellion, to serve until a State government should have been
organized and recognized by the National Government. On
the suppression of military resistance to the authority of the
United States in any such State, an enrollment of white male
citizens was to be made, and a convention was to be called, when
a majority of them should have taken the oath of allegiance, to
act upon the reëstablishment of a State government. All per-
sons having held any office in the Rebel service, civil or mili-
tary, State or Confederate, and all those having voluntarily
borne arms in such service, were to be prohibited from voting
for or being elected as delegates to the State convention.
convention was required, by the bill, to insert in the new con-
stitution to be framed by it, provisions (1st) disfranchising
those who have "held or exercised any civil or military office
(except offices merely ministerial, and military offices below a
colonel), State or Confederate, under the usurping power;
(2d), prohibiting slavery; and (3d), repudiating all debts
created by or under sanction of "the usurping power," "State
or Confederate." The State government thus created was to
be recognized by the President, after obtaining the assent of
Congress, and only after such recognition, the State to be rep-
resented in Congress, and in the electoral college. Slavery
was further formally declared to be abolished in all the States
in question, with remedies and penalties to give this declara-
tion effect. Those Rebels holding any civil or military office,
with the conditions above stated, after this bill should become
a law, were declared not to be citizens of the United States.

This bill passed the House on the day it was reported, yeas 74, nays 66. Among the latter were several Administration members. The preamble, giving a key-note to the spirit and purpose of the bill, was in these words:

WHEREAS, The so-called Confederate States are a public enemy, waging an unjust war, whose injustice is so glaring that they have no right to claim the mitigation of the extreme rights of war which are accorded by modern usage to an enemy who has a right to consider the war a just one; and whereas none of the States which, by a regularly recorded majority of

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its citizens, have joined the so-called Southern Confederacy, can be considered and treated as entitled to be represented in Congress, or to take any part in the political government of the Union.

This was rejected, ayes 57, nays 75.

In the Senate, on the 1st of July, Mr. Brown, of Missouri, moved the following substitute for the entire bill which was carried, yeas 20, nays 13:

That when the inhabitants of any State have been declared in a state of insurrection against the United States, by proclamation of the President, by force and virtue of the act entitled "An act to provide for the collection of duties on imports, and for other purposes," approved July 13, 1861, they shall be, and are hereby declared to be, incapable of casting any vote for electors of President or Vice President of the United States, or of electing Senators or Representatives in Congress, until said insurrection in said State is suppressed or abandoned, and said inhabitants have returned to their obedience to the Government of the United States, nor until such return to obedience shall be declared by proclamation of the President, issued by virtue of an act of Congress, hereafter to be passed, authorizing the same.

The bill having been returned to the House, as thus amended, the amendment was non-concurred in. The Senate ultimately receded from its amendment, yeas 18, nays 14, thus concurring in the passage of the bill as it first came from the House. It is manifest, from the action taken on this bill, that it was not unobjectionable to the majority of the Senate, and that, on free discussion of its prominent details, it could not certainly command a majority in the House on a full vote. That it could ever have received a two-thirds vote in both houses, had it been returned by the Executive with objections, probably its most zealous supporter never imagined. It so happened that the bill, passed just at the close of the session, only reached the President about an hour before the actual adjournment, when numerous other bills were awaiting his signature, allowing him hardly time to even read it with care, much less to prepare a veto message. Much of it he fully approved. Other parts he thought seriously objectionable. Committed, too, as he

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already had been, publicly, to the recognition of the new State governments of Louisiana and Arkansas, he could not, in good faith, repudiate his promises to the people of those States, as would have been done by approving the Davis bill. Only a dictatorial and factious spirit could call in question the President's unrestricted right to withhold his signature, or the purity of the motive which led him to do so. Not less evidently was it proper for him to publish the bill, with a statement of his reasons for the course he had taken, and to give it a place with his own suggestions made in the amnesty proclamation, reserving his former action in regard to Louisiana and Arkansas, and declining to make compliance with the terms of this bill indispensable in any case. He had long before appointed military governors in Tennessce and North Carolina. The power to do so clearly belonged to him, as Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy. But it was questionable, to say the least, whether Congress could constitutionally exercise any "provisional " local jurisdiction in the States, as proposed.

On the 8th of July, 1864, President Lincoln issued the following proclamation, on the subject, accompanied by the Davis Reconstruction bill:

WHEREAS, At the late session, Congress passed a bill "to guarantee to certain States, whose governments have been usurped or overthrown, a republican form of government," a copy of which is hereunto annexed:

AND WHEREAS, The said bill was presented to the President of the United States for his approval less than one hour before the sine die adjournment of said session, and was not signed by him:

AND WHEREAS, The said bill contains, among other things, a plan for restoring the States in rebellion to their proper practical relation in the Union, which plan expresses the sense of Congress upon that subject, and which plan it is now thought fit to lay before the people for their consideration:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do proclaim, declare, and make known, that, while I am (as I was in December last, when by proclamation I propounded a plan for restoration) unprepared, by a formal approval of this bill, to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration; and, while I am also unprepared to declare that the free State constitutions and governments already

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