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compensated emancipation; to which you replied you wished not to be taxed to buy negroes. But I had not asked you to be taxed to buy negroes, except in such a way as to save you from greater taxation to save the Union exclusively by other means.

You dislike the emancipation proclamation, and perhaps would have it retracted. You say it is unconstitutional. I think differently. I think the Constitution invests its Commander-inChief with the law of war in time of war. The most that can be said, if so much, is, that slaves are property. Is there, has there ever been, any question that by the law of war, property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken when needed? And is it not needed whenever it helps us and hurts the enemy? Armies, the world over, destroy enemies' property when they cannot use it; and even destroy their own to keep it from the enemy. Civilized belligerents do all in their power to help themselves or hurt the enemy, except a few things regarded as barbarous or cruel. Among the exceptions are the massacre of vanquished foes and non-combatants, male and female.

But the proclamation, as law, either is valid or is not valid. If is it not valid, it needs no retraction. If it is valid, it cannot be retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life. Some of you profess to think its retraction would operate favorably for the Union. Why better after the retraction than before the issue? There was more than a year and a half of trial to suppress the rebellion before the proclamation was issued, the last one hundred days of which passed under an explicit notice that it was coming, unless averted by those in revolt returning to their allegiance. The war has certainly progressed as favorably for us since the issue of the proclamation as before.

I know as fully as one can know the opinion of others, that some of the commanders of our armies in the field, who have given us our most important victories, believe the emancipation policy and the use of colored troops constitute the heaviest blows yet dealt to the rebellion, and that at least one of those important successes could not have been achieved when it was, but for the aid of the black soldiers.

Among the commanders who hold these views are some who have never had an affinity with what is called "abolitionism," or with "republican party politics," but who hold them purely as military opinions. I submit their opinions as entitled to some weight against the objections often urged that emancipation and

arming the blacks are unwise as military measures, and were not adopted as such in good faith.

You say that you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but no matter. Fight you, then, exclusively to save the Union. I issued the proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving the Union. Whenever you shall have conquered all resistance to the Union, if I shall urge you to continue fighting, it will be an apt time then for you to declare you will not fight to free negroes. I thought that in your struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the negroes shall cease helping the enemy, to that extent it weakened the enemy in his resistance to you. Do you think differently? I thought whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers, leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise to you? But negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do anything for us if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motives, even the promise of freedom. And the promise, being made, must be kept.

The signs look better. The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea. Thanks to the great Northwest for it; nor yet wholly to them. Three hundred miles up they met New England, Empire, Keystone, and Jersey, hewing their way right and left. The sunny South, too, in more colors than one, also lent a helping hand. On the spot, their part of the history was jotted down in black and white. The job was a great national one, and let none be slighted who bore an honorable part in it. And while those who have cleared the great river may well be proud, even that is not all. It is hard to say that anything has been more bravely and well done than at Antietam, Murfreesboro. Gettysburg, and on many fields of less note. Nor must Uncle Sam's web feet be forgotten. At all the watery margins they have been present, not only on the deep sea, the broad bay, and the rapid river, but also up the narrow, muddy bayou, and wherever the ground was a little damp, they have been and made their tracks. Thanks to all. For the great Republic-for the principle it lives by and keeps alive-for man's vast futurethanks to all.

Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time. It will then have been proved that among

freemen there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case and pay the cost. And there will be some black men who can remember that with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation, while I fear there will be some white ones unable to forget that with malignant heart and deceitful speech they have striven to hinder it.

Still, let us not be over-sanguine of a speedy, final triumph. Let us be quite sober. Let us diligently apply the means, never doubting that a just God, in his own good time, will give us the rightful result.

Yours, very truly,

A. Lincoln.

It will be remembered that in the congressional and gubernatorial election of 1862, a strong reaction against Lincoln had been manifest throughout the North. In the autumn of 1863 several states elected governors. Greatly to Lincoln's satisfaction these elections showed a trend of sentiment favorable to the administration. Every state in which elections were held, except New Jersey, gave large majorities for the administration. The result was peculiarly gratifying in Ohio. There the Democratic Party had nominated for governor Clement L. Vallandigham. His disloyalty made him a national figure and of him the nation had heard and yet was to hear much. Ohio in 1863 sustained the president and defeated Vallandigham by a majority of almost one hundred thousand.

This election and the victories around Chattanooga were bright spots in a sky greatly darkened. Lincoln still had much to perplex and dishearten him.

CHAPTER XVIII

JUSTICE AND MERCY

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL characterized Abraham Lincoln as "a man clothed with almost absolute power, who never abused it except on the side of mercy." That mercy, Lincoln had abundant occasion to exercise.

As the war went on, it became necessary for the army to enforce its discipline by punishments against its own soldiers who were guilty of crimes or misdemeanors. Not all soldiers were patriots. Many a man reached the recruiting officer about two leaps ahead of the sheriff. Not a few men in jail for misdemeanors and even for criminal offenses were pardoned on condition that they enter the army. War itself produces criminals. It teaches men to disregard their own word and other men's property and life. There is no crime in the calendar which is not committed by soldiers in every war.

In general these crimes were punished with no more than necessary severity; and, when there were mitigating circumstances, officers well below the president were willing and competent to consider them. Only a very small fraction of the cases of punishment came to his desk. It was only when, all other appeals having been found futile, and usually for just cause, a sentence was to be carried into effect, the friends of guilty men appealed to the president for pardon. The very fact that appeal was taken to him is proof presumptive that the accused had exhausted all ordinary, and probably reasonable, efforts to secure pardon. It is little wonder that when Lincoln interfered in these usually flagrant cases, generals in command protested, and

Stanton stormed. The president was breaking down the discipline of the army.

"I know it, but I don't see that shooting him would do any good," Lincoln would say.

He sincerely pitied the man who was found guilty of cowardice. Lincoln was accustomed to say that he was not sure but that he himself would run if he were placed in the front in battle. It is but fair to say concerning some of the stories of Lincoln's alleged clemency, that so far as is known they are not true.

The attitude of Abraham Lincoln toward the undeserving is entitled to more careful and discriminating treatment than it usually receives. Two natures strove within him. On the one hand, he had a keen sense of justice, and a high regard for law and order. The deliberate violator of law deserved punishment, and society required for its protection that he be punished. So Abraham Lincoln believed; but he also had high regard for the welfare of the man who had broken the law. When he became president, no burden rested more heavily upon him than the fact that in certain cases he had either to accept the judgment of courts sentencing soldiers to be shot, or to interfere in their behalf.

Lincoln was a man of deep sympathy, but his sympathy had a certain well-defined limitation. He felt sympathy where he could see or visualize the personal sorrow that was caused by an act or condition. What was out of sight was more or less out of mind. Lincoln was always able to visualize the case of the individual soldier and of his family. He could see the woman in black before him, declaring that her husband or elder son had lost his life on the battle-field, and that now her youngest son, her baby, was sentenced to be shot for some wholly technical offense. Lincoln had little time to investigate and it is to be feared that in some cases the alleged widow had rented the black clothes for the occasion, and had help in inventing the fiction about her family.

In cases of this character Lincoln was very easily imposed

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