"This is due to the people, both in principle and under the Constitution. Their will, constitutionally expressed, is the ultimate law of all.

"If they should deliberately resolve to have immediate peace, even at the loss of their country, and their liberties, I know not the power or the right to resist them.

"It is their own business, and they must do as they please with their own. I believe, however, they are all resolved to preserve their country and their liberty; and in this, in office or out of it, I am resolved to stand by them. I may add, that in this purpose to save the country and its liberties, no class of people seem so nearly unanimous as the soldiers in the field and the seamen afloat. Do they not have the hardest of it? Who should quail when they do not? God bless the soldiers and seamen and all their brave commanders. "ABRAHAM LINCOLN."'

THE PRESIDENT TO LIEUTENANT-GENERAL GRANT.

Executive Mansion, Washington, April 30, 1864. Lieutenant-General Grant:

Not expecting to see you before the spring campaign opens, I wish to express in this way my entire satisfaction with what you have done up to this time, so far as I understand it.

The particulars of your plan I neither know, nor seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant, and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any restraints or constraints upon you. While I am very anxious that any great disaster, or capture of our men in great num

bers, shall be avoided, I know that these points are less likely to escape your attention than they would be mine. If there be anything wanting, which is within my power to give, do not fail to let me know it.

And now, with a brave army and a just cause, may God sustain you. Yours very truly,

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

SECOND NOMINATION.

Executive Mansion, Washington, June 27, 1864. Hon. William Dennison and Others, a Committee of the National Union Convention.

Gentlemen: Your letter of the 14th instant, formally notifying me that I have been nominated by the Convention you represent for the Presidency of the United States for four years from the 4th of March next, has been received. The nomination is gratefully accepted, as the Resolutions of the Convention-called the platform-are heartily approved.

While the resolution in regard to supplanting of Republican government upon the Western continent is fully concurred in, there might be some misunderstanding were I not to say that the position of the Government in relation to the action of France in Mexico, as assumed through the State Department and endorsed by the Convention, among the measures and acts of the Executive, will be faithfully maintained so long as the state of facts shall leave that position permanent and applicable.

I am especially gratified that the soldier and the seaman were not forgotten by the Convention, as they

forever must and will be remembered by the grateful country for whose salvation they devoted their lives.

Thanking you for the kind and complimentary terms in which you have communicated the nomination and other proceedings of the Convention, I subscribe myself, Your obedient servant,

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

LINCOLN'S SECOND INAUGURAL.

Delivered March 4, 1865, at Washington.

WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE, WITH CHARITY FOR ALL.

"Fellow-Countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then, a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed very fitting and proper. Now,

at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented.

"The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

"On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it; all sought to avoid it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to save the Union with