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ABRAHAM |
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STATE |
PAPERS |
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Introductions and |
Special Articles by |
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Theodore Roosevelt |
William H. Taft |
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Charles E. Hughes |
Joseph H. Choate |
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Henry |
Watterson |
Robert G. Ingersoll |
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JOHN H. |
CLIFFORD |
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MARION M. MILLER |
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Volume VI |
THE UNIVERSITY SOCIETY INC.
NEW YORK.
LIBRARY of CONGRESS Two Cooies Recerved
FEb 10 1909
^Oopyrignt gntry
0LA8S C^ XXo. NOi
1 COPY al
Lirrcolttmnt—
Copyright, 1907 By Current Literature Publishing Company
Copyright, 1908 By The University Society Inc.
^
CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface xi
Introduction
Abraham Lincoln. By James Russell Lowell . xiii The First American. Extract from Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration, July 21, 1863. By James Russell Lowell ..... xliii
Lmcoln's Personal Appearance. By William H. Herndon ........ xlvi
President Lincoln's State Papers. By Henry J. Raymond ........ xlix
GENER.A.L Messages to Congress
]Message to Congress in Special Session. July
4. 1861
Annual Message. December 3, Annual Message. December i, Annual Message. December 8, Annual Message. December 6,
Proclamations, Messages, etc., Concerning Slav- ery
iMessage to Congress Recommending Compen- sated Emancipation. March 6. 1862 . . . 129 IMessage to Congress on Passage of Act to Abolish Slavery in District of Columbia. April
16, 1862 131
Proclamation Revoking General Hunter's Order of Military Emancipation. May 19, 1862 . .132
IMessage to Congress Enclosing Draft of Bill to Compensate States That Abolish Slavery.
July 14, 1862 135
Message to Congress on Act to Confiscate Prop- erty of Rebels, etc. July 17, 1862 . . .136 Order Authorizing Employment of "Contra- bands." July 22, 1862 141
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1864 |
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vi CONTENTS
PAGE
Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Sep- tember 22, 1862 142
Final Emancipation Proclamation. January i,
1863 145
Message to Congress on Freedmen's Aid So- cieties. December 17, 1863 .... 148 Order to Bring Back Negro Colonists from San Domingo. February i, 1864 .... 148
Proclamations of Days of Thanksgiving, Fast- ing, AND Prayer
Proclamation of a National Fast-Day. August
12, 1861 . 153
Proclamation of Celebration of Washington's Birthday. February 19, 1862 .... 154 Proclamation Recommending Thanksgiving for
Victories. April 10, i8b2 155
Proclamation of a National Fast-Day. March
30, 1863 156
Announcement of News from Gettysburg. July
4, 1863 158
Proclamation for Thanksgiving. July 15, 1863 . 158 Proclamation for Thanksgiving. October 3,
1863 .159
Recommendation of Thanksgiving for Union Success in East Tennessee. December 7, 1863 . 161 Recommendation of Thanksgiving. May 9, 1864 162 Proclamation for a Day of Prayer. July 7,
1864 "... 162
Proclamation of Thanksgiving. September 3,
1864 164
Proclamation of Thanksgiving. October 20, 1864 165
Proclamations, Messages, and General Military
Orders Relating to the Conduct of the War
Cabinet Conference on Provisioning Fort
Sumter. March 15, 1861 169
Message to Senate Refusing to Make Public Despatches of Major Anderson. March 26,
1861 . . .173
Cabinet Conference for Relief of Fort Sumter.
March 29, 1861 173
Proclamation Calling 75,000 Militia and Con- vening Congress in Extra Session. April 15, 1861 173
CONTENTS
Proclamation of Blockade in South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisi- ana, and Texas. April 19, 1861 . . . 175 Supplementary Proclamation, Extending Block- ade to Virginia and North Carolina. April 27,
1861 177
Proclamation Calling for 42,034 Volunteers, and an Increase in Regular Army and Navy Forces.
May 3, 1861 177
Proclamation Suspending Writ of Habeas Corpus on the Florida Keys. May 10, 1861 . 179 ]\Iemoranda of Military Policy Suggested by the Bull Run Defeat. July 22,, 27. 1861 . . 179 Message to House of Representatives in re Imprisonment of Baltimore Police Commission- ers. July 27, 1861 181
Proclamation Forbidding Intercourse with Rebel
States. August 16, 1861 181
Memorandum for a Plan of Campaign. About
October i. 1861 183
President's General War Order No. i. Janu- ary 27, 1862 186
President's Special War Order No. i. Janu- ary 31, 1862 ....... 186
Amnesty to Political Prisoners. February 14,
1862 187
Executive Order No. 2. In Relation to State Prisoners. February 27. 1862 .... 189 President's General War Order No. 2. March
8. 1862 189
President's General War Order No. 3. ]\Iarch
8, 1862 190
President's Special War Order No. 3. ]\Iarch
II, 1862 191
Order Taking ^Military Possession of Railroads.
May 25, 1862 192
Message to Congress Assuming Responsibility for Acts of Secretary Cameron for Which He Had Been Censured by the House. May 26,
1862 . . . . ' 193
Order Constituting the Army of Virginia. June
26, 1862 197
Letter to State Governors Calling for Troops. June 30, 1862 198
vin CONTENTS
PAGE
Proclamation Concerning Taxes in Rebellious
States. July i, 1862 201
Proclamation to Rebels to Return to Their
Allegiance. July 25, 1862 202
Proclamation Suspending the Writ of Habeas Corpus Because of Resistance to Draft. Sep- tember 24, 1862 203
Order Establishing Provisional Court in Louisi- ana. October 20, 1862 204
Order Concerning Confiscation Act. November
13, 1862 204
Order for Sabbath Observance. November 15,
1862 204
Congratulations to the Army of the Potomac. December 22, 1862 ...... 205
Opinion on the Admission of West Virginia into the Union. December 31, 1862 . . . 206 Proclamation of Amnesty to Returning Desert- ers. March 10, 1863 208
Proclamations Concerning Commercial Inter- course. March 31, April 2, 1863 . . . 209 Proclamation Admitting West Virginia into the Union. April 20, 1863 ..... 209 Proclamation Concerning Liability of Aliens to Military Service. May 8, 1863 .... 209 Call for 100,000 Militia to Serve Six Months.
June 15, 1863 212
Order of Retaliation for Rebel Mistreatment of
Prisoners. July 30, 1863 213
Order Modifying Prohibition of Export of Arms, etc. September 4, 1863 . . . . 214
Proclamation Suspending Writ of Habeas Corpus throughout the Union. September 15,
1863 214
Call for 300,000 Volunteers. October 17, 1863 . 215 Opinion on the Loss of General R. H. Milroy's Division. October 27, 1863 . . . . 217 Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction.
December 8, 1863 218
Message to Congress on Bounties. January 5,
1864 222
Order for a Draft of 500,000 Men. February
I, 1864 .223
Indorsement on the Modifying Order Relating to Methodist Churches in Rebel States. Febru- ary 13, 1862 224
CONTENTS ix
PAGE
Memoranda About Military Control of Churches.
March 4, 1864 224
Proclamation Restricting Amnesty to Persons
at Large. March 26, 1864 ..... 225
Offer of Troops by State Governors. April 26,
1864 227
Message to Congress on Relief of East Tennes- see Loyalists. April 28, 1864 .... 228 Suspension of Writ of Habeas Corpus in Ken- tucky. July 5, 1864 229
Proclamation Concerning Reconstruction. July
8, 1864 230
Announcement Concerning Terms of Peace.
July 18, 1864 232
Proclamation Calling for 500,000 Volunteers.
July 18, 1864 232
Orders of Thanks and Rejoicing for Union Victories, Won under Admiral Farragut and Major-Generals Canby, Granger, and Sherman.
September 3, 1864 234
Order of Thanks to Hundred-day Troops from Ohio. September 10, 1864 .... 236 Order of Thanks to Hundred-day Troops from Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin. Octo- ber I, 1864 237
Call for 300,000 Volunteers. December 19, 1864 . . . . . . . . .238
Order to Commanding Officers in West Tennes- see. February 13, 1865 239
Proclamation Offering Pardon to Deserters.
March 11, 1865 240
Proclamation of Blockade. April 11, 1865 . 240
Messages, Despatches, Etc., on Foreign Affairs
Message to the Senate on Canadian Boundary
Dispute. March 16, 1861 245
Message to Congress on London Industrial Ex- hibition. July 16, 1861 . . . . .245 Message to Congress on Fisheries Commission.
July 19, 1861 246
Reply to the Tycoon of Japan on Opening Treaty Ports. August i, 1861 .... 246 Letter to the Viceroy of Egypt on His Punish- ment of Persecutors of a Missionary Agent. October 11, 1861 247
X CONTENTS
PAGE
Message to Congress on Treaty with Great Britain to Suppress Slave Trade. June lo,
1862 248
Message to the House of Representatives on Relations with the Rival Governments of New Granada. January 14, 1863 .... 248 Proclamation of Retaliation for Refusal of Port Privileges to American War Vessels Abroad. April II, 1865 250
Messages on Financial, Indian, and Adminis- trative Affairs
Message to the Senate on Act to Permit Circu- lation of Bank-Notes of Small Denominations in the District of Columbia. June 23, 1862 . . 255 Message to the Senate on the Indian Massacre in Minnesota. December 11, 1862 . . . 257 Message to Congress on Issue of United States Notes. January 17, 1863 ..... 259 Message to Congress on Electoral Count. Feb- ruary 8, 1865 261
Proclamation Concerning Supply of Arms to Indians by Foreigners. March 17, 1865 . . 262
PREFACE
State papers of President Lincoln not specifi- cally addressed to any individual in his proper name form the contents of this volume of the series.
Documents issued by members of the Cabinet or other officials are included among the state papers when they convey the President's instruc- tions or express his opinions.
A number of state papers have been excluded from the present edition because their subject- matter is of no historical importance ; their style does not express Lincoln's personality ; and even the fact of their existence gives no indication of executive ability beyond the perfunctory per- formance of routine duties. Such are messages to Congress transmitting documents requested by that body, executive action, as required by the Constitution, on acts of Congress, official in- dorsements of the reports and findings of com- missions, etc., in whose labors the President had no part, formal receptions of foreign ministers, etc. In certain instances where documents have only historical value, an abstract of their contents is given. If, however, even as much as a phrase is expressive of Lincoln's personality, it is quoted in his exact words.
The state papers are arranged under the fol- lowing heads :
I. General Messages to Congress; xi
xii PREFACE
2. Proclamations, Messages, etc., Concerning Slavery ;
3. Proclamations and Recommendations of Days of Thanksgiving, Fasting, and Prayer;
4. Proclamations, Messages to Congress, and Military Orders Relating to the Conduct of the War;
5. Messages and Despatches on Foreign Af- fairs ;
6. Messages and Proclamations on Financial, Indian, and Administrative Aflfairs.
Some documents could with propriety appear in more than one class : for example, the proc- lamations regarding slavery are necessarily con- nected with the conduct of the war — military necessity being advanced as the reason for their promulgation. One classification, therefore, would be logically sufficient, but Lincoln's pre- eminent fame as the Great Emancipator justifies from a practical point of view the segregation of those papers relating to slavery. For a sim- ilar reason the proclamations of days of thanks- giving, fasting, and prayer have been taken out of the military papers and put in a class by them- selves. They present Lincoln's official recogni- tion of a divine guidance in the affairs of nations.
The papers in each division are chronologically arranged.
Introductions
INTRODUCTION
Abraham Lincoln.*
By James Russell Lowell.
There have been many painful crises since the impatient vanity of South CaroHna hurried ten prosperous Commonwealths into a crime whose assured retribution was to leave them either at the mercy of the nation they had wronged, or of the anarchy they had summoned but could not control, when no thoughtful Amer- ican opened his morning paper without dreading to find that he had no longer a country to love and honor. Whatever the result of the convul- sion whose first shocks were beginning to be felt, there would still be enough square miles of earth for elbow-room ; but that ineffable senti- ment made up of memory and hope, of instinct and tradition, which swells every man's heart and shapes his thought, though perhaps never present to his consciousness, would be gone from it, leaving it common earth and nothing more. Men might gather rich crops from it, but that ideal harvest of priceless associations would be reaped no longer; that fine virtue which sent up messages of courage and security from every sod of it would have evaporated beyond recall. We should be irrevocably cut off from our past,
* Published in the North American Review for January, 1864. xiii
xiv ABRAHAM LINCOLN
and be forced to splice the ragged ends of our lives upon whatever new conditions chance might leave dangling for us.
We confess that we had our doubts at first whether the patriotism of our people were not too narrowly provincial to embrace the propor- tions of national peril. We felt an only too natu- ral distrust of immense public meetings and enthusiastic cheers.
That a reaction should follow the holiday en- thusiasm with which the war was entered-on, that it should follow soon, and that the slackening of public spirit should be proportionate to the previous over-tension, might well be foreseen by all who had studied human nature or history. Men acting gregariously are always in extremes ; as they are one moment capable of higher cour- age, so they are liable, the next, to baser depres- sion, and it is often a matter of chance whether numbers shall multiply confidence or discourage- ment. Nor does deception lead more surely to distrust of men, than self-deception to suspicion of principles. The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mor- dant of experience. Enthusiasm is good material for the orator, but the statesman needs something more durable to work in, — must be able to rely on the deliberate reason and consequent firmness of the people, without which that presence of mind, no less essential in times of moral than of material peril, will be wanting at the critical mo- ment. Would this fervor of the Free States hold out? Was it kindled by a just feeling of the value of constitutional liberty ? Had it body enough to withstand the inevitable dampening of checks^ re-
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL xv
verses, delays? Had our population intelligence enough to comprehend that the choice was be- tween order and anarchy, between the equilib- rium of a government by law and the tussle of misrule by prommciamicnto? Could a war be maintained without the ordinary stimulus of hatred and plunder, and with the impersonal loy- alty of principle? These were serious questions, and with no precedent to aid in answering them. At the beginning of the war there was, indeed, occasion for the most anxious apprehension. A President known to be infected with the polit- ical heresies, and suspected of sympathy with the treason, of the Southern conspirators, had just surrendered the reinSj we will not say of power, but of chaos, to a successor known only as the representative of a party whose leaders, with long training in opposition, had none in the conduct of affairs ; an empty treasury was called on to supply resources beyond precedent in the history of finance ; the trees were yet grow- ing and the iron unmined with which a navy was to be built and armored; officers without discipline were to make a mob into an army; and, above all, the public opinion of Europe, echoed and reinforced with every vague hint and every specious argument of despondency by a powerful faction at home, was either contemp- tuously sceptical or actively hostile. It would be hard to overestimate the force of this latter ele- ment of disintegration and discouragement among a people where every citizen at home, and every soldier in the field, is a reader of news- papers. The pedlers of rumor in the North were the most effective allies of the rebellion. A nation can be liable to no more insidious treach-
xvi 'ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ery than that of the telegraph, sending hourly- its electric thrill of panic along the remotest nerves of the community, till the excited imagi- nation makes every real danger loom heightened with its unreal double.
And even if we look only at more palpable difficulties, the problem to be solved by our civil war was so vast, both in its immediate relations and its future consequences ; the conditions of its solution were so intricate and so greatly de- pendent on incalculable and uncontrollable con- tingencies ; so many of the data, whether for hope or fear, were, from their novelty, incapable of arrangement under any of the categories of historical precedent, that there were moments of crisis when the firmest believer in the strength and sufficiency of the democratic theory of gov- ernment might well hold his breath in vague apprehension of disaster. Our teachers of polit- ical philosophy, solemnly arguing from the prece- dent of some petty Grecian, Italian, or Flemish city, whose long periods of aristocracy were broken now and then by awkward parentheses of mob, had always taught us that democracies were incapable of the sentiment of loyalty, of concen- trated and prolonged effort, of far-reaching con- ceptions ; were absorbed in material interests ; im- patient of regular, and much more of exceptional restraint; had no natural nucleus of gravitation, nor any forces but centrifugal; were always on the verge of civil war, and slunk at last into the natural almshouse of bankrupt popular govern- ment, a military despotism. Here was indeed a dreary outlook for persons who knew democracy, not by rubbing shoulders with it lifelong, but merely from books, and America only by the
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL xvii
report of some fellow-Briton, who, having eaten a bad dinner or lost a carpet-bag here, had writ- ten to The Times demanding redress^ and draw- ing a mournful inference of democratic instabil- ity. Nor were men wanting among ourselves who had so steeped their brains in London literature as to mistake Cockneyism for European culture, and contempt of their country for cosmopolitan breadth of view, and who, owing all they had and all they were to democracy, thought it had an air of high-breeding to join in the shallow epicedium that our bubble had burst.
But beside any disheartening influences which might affect the timid or the despondent, there were reasons enough of settled gravity against any over-confidence of hope. A war — which, whether we consider the expanse of the territory at stake, the hosts brought into the field, or the reach of the principles involved, may fairly be reckoned the most momentous of modern times — was to be waged by a people divided at home, unnerved by fifty years of peace, under a chief magistrate without experience and without repu- tation, whose every measure was sure to be cun- ningly hampered by a jealous and unscrupulous minority, and who, while dealing with unheard-of complications at home, must soothe a hostile neutrality abroad, waiting only a pretext to be- come war. All this was to be done without warn- ing and without preparation, while at the same time a social revolution was to be accomplished in the political condition of four millions of people, by softening the prejudices, allaying the fears, and gradually obtaining the cooperation, of their unwilling liberators. Surely, if ever there were an occasion_ when the heightened
xviii 'ABRAHAM LINCOLN
imagination of the historian might see Destiny visible intervening in human affairs, here was a knot worthy of her shears. Never, perhaps, was any system of government tried by so con- tinuous and searching a strain as ours during the last three years; never has any shown itself stronger; and never could that strength be so directly traced to the virtue and intelligence of the people, — to that general enlightenment and prompt efficiency of public opinion possible only under the influence of a political framework like our own. We find it hard to understand how even a foreigner should be blind to the grandeur of the combat of ideas that has been going on here, — to the heroic energy, persistency, and self-reliance of a nation proving that it knows how much dearer greatness is than mere power; and we own that it is impossible for us to con- ceive the mental and moral condition of the American who does not feel his spirit braced and heightened by being even a spectator of such qualities and achievements. That a steady pur- pose and a definite aim have been given to the jarring forces which, at the beginning of the war, spent themselves in the discussion of schemes which could only become operative, if at all, after the war was over ; that a popular excitement has been slowly intensified into an earnest na- tional will; that a somewhat impracticable moral sentiment has been made the unconscious instru- ment of a practical moral end; that the treason of covert enemies, the jealousy of rivals, the unwise zeal of friends, have been made not only useless for mischief, but even useful for good ; that the conscientious sensitiveness of England to the horrors of civil conflict has been prevented
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL xix
from complicating a domestic with a foreign war ; — all these results, any one of which might suffice to prove greatness in a ruler, have been mainly due to the good sense, the good-humor, the sagacity, the large-mindedness, and the un- selfish honesty of the unknown man whom a blind fortune, as it seemed, had lifted from the crowd to the most dangerous and difficult emi- nence of modern times. It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of a man is tested; it is by the sagacity to see, and the fearless honesty to admit, whatever of truth there may be in an adverse opinion, in order more convincingly to expose the fallacy that lurks behind it, that a reasoner at length gains for his mere statement of a fact the force of argument; it is by a wise forecast which allows hostile combinations to go so far as by the in- evitable reaction to become elements of his own power, that a politician proves his genius for statecraft ; and especially it is by so gently guid- ing public sentiment that he seems to follow it, by so yielding doubtful points that he can be firm without seeming obstinate in essential ones, and thus gain the advantages of compromise without the weakness of concession ; by so in- stinctively comprehending the temper and preju- dices of a people as to make them gradually con- scious of the superior wisdom of his freedom from temper and prejudice, — it is by qualities such as these that a magistrate shows himself worthy to be chief in a commonwealth of free- men. And it is for qualities such as these that we firmly believe History will rank Mr. Lincoln among the most prudent of statesmen and the most successful of rulers. If we wish to appre-
XX ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ciate him, we have only to conceive the inevitable chaos in which we should now be weltering, had a weak man or an unwise one been chosen in his stead.
''Bare is back," says the Norse proverb, "with- out brother behind it"; and this is, by analogy, true of an elective magistracy. The hereditary ruler in any critical emergency may reckon on the inexhaustible resources of prestige, of senti- ment, of superstition, of dependent interest, while the new man must slowly and painfully create all these out of the unwilling material around him, by superiority of character, by patient singleness of purpose, by sagacious pre- sentiment of popular tendencies and instinctive sympathy with the national character. Mr. Lin- coln's task was one of peculiar and exceptional difficulty. Long habit had accustomed the Amer- ican people to the notion of a party in power, and of a President as its creature and organ, while the more vital fact, that the executive for the time being represents the abstract idea of government as a permanent principle superior to all party and all private interest, had grad- ually become unfamiliar. They had so long seen the public policy more or less directed by views of party, and often even of personal advantage, as to be ready to suspect the motives of a chief magistrate compelled, for the first time in our history, to feel himself the head and hand of a great nation, and to act upon the fundamental maxim, laid down by all publicists, that the first duty of a government is to defend and maintain its own existence. Accordingly, a powerful weapon seemed to be put into the hands of the opposition by the necessity under which the ad-
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL xxi
ministration found itself of applying this^ old truth to new relations. Nor were the opposition his only nor his most dangerous opponents.
The Republicans had carried the country upon an issue in which ethics were more directly and visibly mingled with politics than usual. Their leaders were trained to a method of oratory which relied for its effect rather on the moral sense than the understanding. Their arguments were drawn, not so much from experience as from general principles of right and wrong. When the war came, their system continued to be ap- plicable and effective, for here again the reason of the people was to be reached and kindled through their sentiments. It was one of those periods of excitement, gathering, contagious, universal, which, while they last, exalt and clarify the minds of men, giving to the mere words country, human rights, democracy, a meaning and a force beyond that of sober and logical argu- ment. They were convictions, maintained and defended by the supreme logic of passion. That penetrating fire ran in and roused those primary instincts that miake their lair in the dens and caverns of the mind. What is called the great popular heart was awakened, that indefinable something which may be, according to circum- stances, the highest reason or the most brutish unreason. But enthusiasm, once cold, can never be warmed over into anything better than cant, — and phrases, when once the inspiration that filled them with beneficent power has ebbed away, retain only that semblance of meaning which enables them to supplant reason in hasty minds. Among the lessons taught by the French Revolu- tjor there is none sadder or more striking than
xxii ABRAHAM LINCOLN
this, that you may make everything else out of the passions of men except a pohtical system that will work, and that there is nothing so pitilessly and unconsciously cruel as sincerity formulated into dogma. It is always demoralizing to extend the domain of sentiment over questions where it has no legitimate jurisdiction; and perhaps the severest strain upon Mr. Lincoln was in resisting a tendency of his own supporters which chimed with his own private desires while wholly op- posed to his convictions of what would be wise policy.
The change which three years have brought about is too remarkable to be passed over with- out comment, too weighty in its lesson not to be laid to heart. Never did a President enter upon office with less means at his command, out- side his own strength of heart and steadiness of understanding, for inspiring confidence in the people, and so winning it for himself, than Mr. Lincoln. All that was known of him was that he was a good stump-speaker, nominated for his availability, — that is, because he had no history, — and chosen by a party with whose more extreme opinions he was not in sympathy. It might well be feared that a man past fifty, against whom the ingenuity of hostile partisans could rake up no accusation, must be lacking in manliness of character, in decision of principle, in strength of will; that a man who was at best only the representative of a party, and who yet did not fairly represent even that, would fail of political, much more of popular, support. And certainly no one ever entered upon office with so few resources of power in the past, and so many materials of weakness in the present, as Mr. Lin-
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL xxiii
coin. Even in that half of the Union which acknowledged him as President, there was a large, and at that time dangerous minority, that hardly admitted his claim to the office, and even in the party that elected him there was also a large minority that suspected him of being se- cretly a communicant with the church of Lao- dicea. All that he did was sure to be virulently attacked as ultra by one side; all that he left undone to be stigmatized as proof of lukewarm- ness and backsliding by the other. Meanwhile he was to carry on a truly colossal war by means of both; he was to disengage the country from diplomatic entanglements of unprecedented peril undisturbed by the help or the hindrance of either, and to win from the crowning dangers of his administration, in the confidence of the peo- ple, the means of his safety and their own. He has contrived to do it, and perhaps none of our Presidents since Washington has stood so firm in the confidence of the people as he does after three years of stormy administration.
Mr. Lincoln's policy was a tentative one, and rightly so. He laid down no programme which must compel him to be either inconsistent or unwise, no cast-iron theorem to which circum- stances must be fitted as they rose, or else be useless to his ends. He seemed to have chosen Mazarin's motto, Le temps ct moi.^ The moi, to be sure, was not very prominent at first ; but it has grown more and more so, till the world is beginning to be persuaded that it stands for a character of marked individuality and capacity for affairs. Time was his prime-minister, and,
* Time and I. Cardinal Mazarin was prime-minister of Louis XIV. of France.
XX iv ABRAHAM LINCOLN
we began to think, at one period, his general-in- chief also. At first he was so slow that he tired out all those who see no evidence of progress but in blowing up the engine; then he was so fast that he took the breath away from those who think there is no getting on safely while there is a spark of fire under the boilers. God is the only being who has time enough ; but a pru- dent man, who knows how to seize occasion, can commonly make a shift to find as much as he needs. Mr. Lincoln, as it seems to us in review- ing his career, though we have sometimes in our impatience thought otherwise, has always waited, as a wise man should, till the right moment brought up all his reserves. Semper noeitit dif- ferre paratis,"^ is a sound axiom, but the really efficacious man will also be sure to know when he is not ready, and be firm against all persuasion and reproach till he is.
One would be apt to think, from some of the criticisms made on Mr. Lincoln's course by those who mainly agree with him in principle, that the chief object of a statesman should be rather to proclaim his adhesion to certain doctrines, than to achieve their triumph by quietly accomplishing his ends. In our opinion, there is no more unsafe politician than a conscientiously rigid doctrinaire, nothing more sure to end in disaster than a theoretic scheme of policy that admits of no pliability for contingencies. True, there is a popular image of an impossible He, in whose plastic hands the submissive des- tinies of mankind become as wax, and to whose commanding necessity the toughest facts yield with the graceful pliancy of fiction; but in real
* It is always bad for those who are ready to procrastinate.
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL xxv
life we commonly find that the men who control circumstances, as it is called, are those who have learned to allow for the influence of their eddies, and have the nerve to turn them to account at the happy instant. JMr. Lincoln's perilous task has been to carry a rather shaky raft through the rapids, making fast the unrulier logs as he could snatch opportunity, and the country is to be congratulated that he did not think it his duty to run straight at all hazards, but cautiously to assure himself with his setting-pole where the main current was, and keep steadily to that. He is still in wild water, but we have faith that his skill and sureness of eye will bring him out right at last.
A curious, and, as we think, not inapt parallel, might be drawn between Mr. Lincoln and one of the most striking figures in modern history, — Henry IV. of France. The career of the latter may be more picturesque, as that of a daring captain always is ; but in all its vicissitudes there is nothing more romantic than that sudden change, as by a rub of Aladdin's lamp, from the attorney's office in a country town of Illinois to the helm of a great nation in times like these. The analogy between the characters and circum- stances of the two men is in many respects singularly close. Succeeding to a rebellion rather than a crown, Henry's chief material de- pendence was the Huguenot party, whose doc- trines sat upon him with a looseness distasteful certainly, if not suspicious, to the more fanatical among them. King only in name over the greater part of France, and with his capital barred against him, it yet gradually became clear to the more far-seeing even of the Catholic
xxvi ABRAHAM LINCOLN
party that he was the only centre of order and legitimate authority round which France could reorganize itself. While preachers who held the divine right of kings made the churches of Paris ring with declamations in favor of democracy rather than submit to the heretic dog of a Bear- nois,* — much as our soi-disant Democrats have lately been preaching the divine right of slavery, and denouncing the heresies of the Declaration of Independence, — Henry bore both parties in hand till he was convinced that only one course of action could possibly combine his own interests with those of France. Meanwhile the Protestants believed somewhat doubtfully that he was theirs, the Catholics hoped somewhat doubtfully that he would be theirs, and Henry himself turned aside remonstrance, advice, and curiosity alike with a jest or a proverb (if a little high, he liked them none the worse), joking con- tinually as his manner was. We have seen Mr. Lincoln contemptuously compared to Sancho Panza by persons incapable of appreciating one of the deepest pieces of wisdom in the profound- est romance ever written ; namely, that, while Don Quixote was incomparable in theoretic and ideal statesmanship, Sancho, with his stock of proverbs, the ready money of human experience, made the best possible practical governor. Henry IV. was as full of wise saws and modern instances as Mr. Lincoln, but beneath all this was the thoughtful, practical, humane, and thoroughly earnest man, around whom the frag- ments of France were to gather themselves till she took her place again as a planet of the first
* Henry came from the province of Beam.
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL xxvii
magnitude in the European system. In one re- spect Mr. Lincoln was more fortunate than Henry. However some may think him wanting in zeal, the most fanatical can find no taint of apos- tasy in any measure of his, nor can the most bitter charge him with being influenced by mo- tives of personal interest. The leading distinc- tion between the policies of the two is one of circumstances. Henry went over to the nation; Mr. Lincoln has steadily drawn the nation over to him. One left a united France; the other, we hope and believe, will leave a re- united America. We leave our readers to trace the further points of difference and resemblance for themselves, merely suggesting a general similarity which has often occurred to us. One only point of melancholy interest we will allow ourselves to touch upon. That Mr. Lincoln is not handsome nor elegant, we learn from cer- tain English tourists who would consider similar revelations in regard to Queen Victoria as thoroughly American in their want of hienscance. It is no concern of ours, nor does it affect his fitness for the high place he so worthily occupies ; but he is certainly as fortunate as Henry in the matter of good looks, if we may trust contem- porary evidence. Mr. Lincoln has also been re- proached with Americanism by some not un- friendly British critics ; but, with all deference, we cannot say that we like him any the worse for it, or see in it any reason why he should govern Americans the less wisely.
People of more sensitive organizations may be shocked, but we are glad that in this our true war of independence, which is to free us for- ever from the Old World, we have had at the
xxviii ABRAHAM LINCOLN
head of our affairs a man whom America made, as God made Adam, out of the very earth, un- ancestored, unprivileged, unknown, to show us how much truth, how much magnanimity, and how much statecraft await the call of opportunity in simple manhood when it believes in the justice of God and the worth of man. Conven- tionalities are all very well in their proper place, but they shrivel at the touch of nature like stub- ble in the fire. The genius that sways a nation by its arbitrary will seems less august to us than that which multiplies and reinforces itself in the instincts and convictions of an entire peo- ple. Autocracy may have something in it more melodramatic than this, but falls far short of it in human value and interest.
Experience would have bred in us a rooted dis- trust of improvised statesmanship, even if w^e did not believe politics to be a science, which, if it cannot always command men of special apti- tude and great powers, at least, demands the long and steady application of the best powers of such men as it can command to master even its first principles. It is. curious, that, in a country which boasts of its intelligence, the theory should be so generally held that the most complicated of human contrivances, and one which every day becomes more complicated, can be worked at sight by any man able to talk for an hour or two without stopping to think.
Mr. Lincoln is sometimes claimed as an ex- ample of a ready-made ruler. But no case could well be less in point ; for, besides that he w^as a man of such fair-mindedness as is always the raw material of wisdom, he had in his profes- sion a training precisely the opposite of that to
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL xxh
which a partisan is subjected. His experience as a lawyer compelled him not only to see that there is a principle underlying every phenomenon in human affairs, but that there are always two sides to every question, both of which must be fully understood in order to understand either, and that it is of greater advantage to an advo- cate to appreciate the strength than the weakness of his antagonist's position. Nothing is more remarkable than the unerring tact with which, in his debate with Mr. Douglas, he went straight to the reason of the question ; nor have we ever had a more striking lesson in political tactics than the fact, that opposed to a man exceptionally adroit in using popular prejudice and bigotry to his purpose, exceptionally unscrupulous in appealing to those baser motives that turn a meet- ing of citizens into a mob of barbarians, he should yet have won his case before a jury of the people. Mr. Lincoln was as far as possible from an impromptu politician. His wisdom was made up of a knowledge of things as well as of men ; his sagacity resulted from a clear per- ception and honest acknowledgment of difficul- ties, which enabled him to see that the only dura- ble triumph of political opinion is based, not on any abstract right, but upon so much of justice, the highest attainable at any given moment in human affairs, as may be had in the balance of mutual concession. Doubtless he had an ideal, but it was the ideal of a practical statesman, — to aim at the best, and to take the next best, if he is lucky enough to get even that. His slow, but singularly masculine, intelligence taught him that precedent is only another name for embodied experience, and that it counts for even more in
XXX ABRAHAM LINCOLN
the guidance of communities of men than in that of the individual life. He was not a man who held it good public economy to pull down on the mere chance of rebuilding better. Mr. Lincoln's faith in God was qualified by a very well-founded distrust of the wisdom of man. Perhaps it was his want of self-confidence that more than any- thing else won him the unlimited confidence of the people, for they felt that there would be no need of retreat from any position he had deliberately taken. The cautious, but steady, advance of his policy during the war was like that of a Roman army. He left behind him a firm road on which public confidence could fol- low ; he took America with him where he went ; what he gained he occupied, and his advanced posts became colonies. The very homeliness of his genius was its distinction. His kingship was conspicuous by its workday homespun. Never was ruler so absolute as he, nor so little conscious of it ; for he was the incarnate common- sense of the people. With all that tenderness of nature whose sweet sadness touched whoever saw him with something of its own pathos, there was no trace of sentimentalism in his speech or action. He seems to have had but one rule of conduct, always that of practical and successful politics, to let himself be guided by events, when they were sure to bring him out where he wished to go, though by what seemed to unpractical minds, which let go the possible to grasp at the desirable, a longer road.
Undoubtedly the highest function of states- manship is by degrees to accommodate the con- duct of communities to ethical laws, and to sub- ordinate the conflicting self-interests of the day
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL xxxi
to higher and more permanent concerns. But it is on the understanding, and not on the senti- ment, of a nation that all safe legislation must be based. Voltaire's saying, that "a considera- tion of petty circumstances is the tomb of great things," may be true of individual men, but it certainly is not true of governments. It is by a multitude of such considerations, each in itself trifling, but all together weighty, that the f ramers of policy can alone divine what is practicable and therefore wise. The imputation of incon- sistency is one to which every sound politician and every honest thinker must sooner or later subject himself. The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion. The course of a great statesman resembles that of navigable rivers, avoiding immovable obstacles with noble bends of concession, seeking the broad levels of opinion on which men soonest settle and longest dwell, following and marking the almost imper- ceptible slopes of national tendency, yet always aiming at direct advances, always recruited from sources nearer heaven, and sometimes bursting open paths of progress and fruitful human com- merce through what seem the eternal barriers of both. It is loyalty to great ends, even though forced to combine the small and opposing mo- tives of selfish men to accomplish them ; it is the anchored cling to solid principles of duty and action, which knows how to swing with the tide, but is never carried away by it, — that we demand in public men, and not sameness of policy, or a conscientious persistency in what is impracti- cable. For the impracticable, however theoret- ically enticing, is always politically unwise, sound statesmanship being the application of that
xxxii ABRAHAM LINCOLN
prudence to the public business which is the safest guide in that of private men.
No doubt slavery was the most delicate and embarrassing question with which Mr. Lincoln was called on to deal, and it was one which no man in his position, whatever his opinions, could evade ; for, though he might withstand the clamor of partisans, he must sooner or later yield to the persistent importunacy of circumstances, which thrust the problem upon him at every turn and in every shape.
It has been brought against us as an accusation abroad, and repeated here by people who measure their country rather by what is thought of it than by what it is, that our war has not been distinctly and avowedly for the extinction of slavery, but a war rather for the preservation of our national power and greatness, in which the emancipation of the negro has been forced upon us by circumstances and accepted as a ne- cessity. We are very far from denying this ; nay, we admit that it is so far true that we were slow to renounce our constitutional obligations even toward those who had absolved us by their own act from the letter of our duty. We are speak- ing of the government which, legally installed for the whole country, was bound, so long as it was possible, not to overstep the limits of orderly prescription, and could not, without ab- negating its own very nature, take the lead in making rebellion an excuse for revolution. There were, no doubt, many ardent and sincere persons who seemed to think this .as simple a thing to do as to lead off a Virginia reel. They forgot, what should be forgotten least of all in a system like ours, that the administration for
BF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL ::xxni
the time being represents not only the majority which elects it, but the minority as well, — a mi- nority in this case powerful, and so little ready for emancipation that it was opposed even to war. Mr. Lincoln had not been chosen as gen- eral agent of an anti-slavery society, but Presi- dent of the United States, to perform certain functions exactly defined by law. Whatever were his wishes, it was no less duty than policy to mark out for himself a line of action that would not further distract the country, by raising before their time questions which plainly would soon enough compel attention, and for which every day was making the answer more easy.
Meanwhile he must solve the riddle of this new Sphinx, or be devoured. Though Mr. Lin- coln's policy in this critical affair has not been such as to satisfy those who demand an heroic treatment for even the most trifling occasion, and who will not cut their coat according to their cloth, unless they can borrow the scissors of Atropos, it has been at least not unworthy of the long-headed king of Ithaca. Mr. Lincoln had the choice of Bassanio offered him. Which of the three caskets held the prize that was to re- deem the fortunes of the country?" There was the golden one, whose showy speciousness might have tempted a vain man ; the silver of compro- mise, which might have decided the choice of a merely acute one; and the leaden, — dull and homely-looking, as prudence always is, — yet with something about it sure to attract the eye of practical wisdom. Mr. Lincoln dallied with his decision perhaps longer than seemed needful to those on whom its awful responsibility was not to rest, but when he made it, it was worthy of
xxxiv ' ABRAHAM LINCOLN
his cautious but sure-footed understanding. The moral of the Sphinx-riddle, and it is a deep one, lies in the childish simplicity of the solution. Those who fail in guessing it, fail because they are over-ingenious, and cast about for an answer that shall suit their own notion of the gravity of the occasion, and of their own dignity, rather than the occasion itself.
In a matter which must be finally settled by public opinion, and in regard to which the fer- ment of prejudice and passion on both sides has not yet subsided to that equilibrium of compro- mise from which alone a sound public opinion can result, it is proper enough for the private citizen to press his own convictions with all pos- sible force of argument and persuasion; but the popular magistrate, whose judgment must be- come action, and whose action involves the whole country, is bound to wait till the sentiment of the people is so far advanced toward his own point of view, that what he does shall find sup- port in it, instead of merely confusing it with new elements of division. It was not unnatural that men earnestly devoted to the saving of tlieir country, and profoundly convinced that slavery was its only real enemy, should demand a decided policy round which all patriots might rally, — and this might have been the wisest course for an absolute ruler. But in the then unsettled state of the public mind, with a large party decrying even resistance to the slaveholders' rebellion as not only unwise, but even unlawful ; with a ma- jority, perhaps, even of the would-be loyal so long accustomed to regard the Constitution as a deed of gift conveying to the South their own judgment as to policy and instinct as to right,
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL xxxv
that they were in doubt at first whether their loyalty were due to the country or to slavery; and with a respectable body of honest and in- fluential men who still believed in the possibility of conciliation, — Mr. Lincoln judged wisely, that, in laying down a policy in deference to one party, he should be giving to the other the very fulcrum for which their disloyalty had been waiting.
It behooved a clear-headed man in his position not to yield so far to an honest (indignation against the brokers of treason in the North as to lose sight of the materials for misleading which were their stock in trade, and to forget that it is not the falsehood of sophistry which is to be feared, but the grain of truth mingled with it to make it specious, — that it is not the knavery of the leaders so much as the honesty of the followers they may seduce, that gives them power for evil. It was especially his duty to do nothing which might help the people to forget the true cause of the war in fruitless disputes about its inevitable consequences.
The doctrine of State rights can be so handled by an adroit demagogue as easily to confound the distinction between liberty and lawlessness in the minds of ignorant persons, accustomed always to be influenced by the sound of certain words, rather than to reflect upon the principles wdiich give them meaning. For, though Seces- sion involves the manifest absurdity of denying to a State the right of making war against any foreign power while permitting it against the United States ; though it supposes a compact of mutual concessions and guaranties among States without any arbiter in case of dissension ; though
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it contradicts commonsense in assuming that the men who framed our government did not know what they meant when they substituted Union for Confederation; though it falsifies his- tory, which shows that the main opposition to the adoption of the Constitution was based on the argument that it did not allow that independ- ence in the several States which alone would justify them in seceding; — yet, as slavery was universally admitted to be a reserved right, an inference could be drawn from any direct attack upon it (though only in self-defense) to a natural right of resistance, logical enough to satisfy minds untrained to detect fallacy, as the majority of men always are, and now too much disturbed by the disorder of the times, to consider that the order of events had any legitimate bearing on the argument. Though Mr. Lincoln was too sagacious to give the Northern allies of the Rebels the occasion they desired and even strove to provoke, yet from the beginning of the war the most persistent efforts have been made to confuse the public mind as to its origin and motives, and to drag the people of the loyal States down from the national position they had instinctively taken to the old level of party squab- bles and antipathies. The wholly unprovoked rebellion of an oligarchy proclaiming negro slav- ery the corner-stone of free institutions, and in the first flush of over-hasty confidence venturing to parade the logical sequence of their leading dogma, "that slavery is right in principle, and has nothing to do with difference of com- plexion," has been represented as a legitimate and gallant attempt to maintain the true prin- ciples of democracy. The rightful endeavor of
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL xxxvii
an established government, the least onerous that ever existed, to defend itself against a treach- erous attack on its very existence, has been cun- ningly made to seem the wicked effort of a fanati- cal clique to force its doctrines on an oppressed population.
Even so long ago as when Mr. Lincoln, not yet convinced of the danger and magnitude of the crisis, was endeavoring to persuade himself of Union majorities at the South, and to carry on a war that was half peace in the hope of a peace that would have been all war, — while he was still enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law, under some theory that Secession, however it might absolve States from their obligations, could not escheat them of their claims under the Constitution, and that slaveholders in rebellion had alone among mortals the privilege of having their cake and eating it at the same time, — the enemies of free government were striving to persuade the people that the war was an Aboli- tion crusade. To rebel without reason was pro- claimed as one of the rights of man, while it was carefully kept out of sight that to suppress rebellion is the first duty of government. All the evils that have come upon the country have been attributed to the Abolitionists, though it is hard to see how any party can become per- manently powerful except in one of two ways, — either by the greater truth of its principles, or the extravagance of the party opposed to it. To fancy the ship of state, riding safe at her constitu- tional moorings, suddenly engulfed by a huge kraken of Abolitionism, rising from unknown depths and grasping it with slimy tentacles, is to look at the natural history of the matter with
xxxviii ABRAHAM LINCOLN
the eyes of Pontoppidan/^ To believe that the leaders in the Southern treason feared any dan- ger from Abolitionism, would be to deny them ordinary intelligence, though there can be little doubt that they made use of it to stir the pas- sions and excite the fears of their deluded accom- plices. They rebelled, not because they thought slavery v^eak, but because they believed it strong enough, not to overthrow the government, but to get possession of it; for it becomes daily clearer that they used rebellion only as a means of revolution, and if they got revolution, though not in the shape they looked for, is the American people to save them from its consequences at the cost of its own existence? The election of Mr. Lincoln, which it was clearly in their power to prevent had they wished, was the occasion merely, and not the cause, of their revolt. Abo- litionism, till within a year or two, was the de- spised heresy of a few earnest persons, without political weight enough to carry the election of a parish constable ; and their cardinal principle was disunion, because they were convinced that within the Union the position of slavery was im- pregnable. In spite of the proverb, great effects do not follow from small causes, — that is, dis- proportionately small, — but from adequate causes acting under certain required conditions. To contrast the size of the oak with that of the par- ent acorn, as if the poor seed had paid all costs from its slender strong-box, may serve for a child's wonder; but the real miracle lies in that divine league which bound all the forces of na- ture to the service of the tiny germ in fulfilling its destiny. Everything has been at work for
* A Danish antiquary and theologian.
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL xxx
IX
the past ten years in the cause of anti-slavery, but Garrison and PhilHps have been far less suc- cessful propagandists than the slaveholders themselves, with the constantly growing arro- gance of their pretensions and encroachments." They have forced the question upon the attention of every voter in the Free States, by defiantly put- ting freedom and democracy on the defensive. But, even after the Kansas outrages, there was no widespread desire on the part of the North to commit aggressions, though there was a growing determination to resist them. The popular unan- imity in favor of the war three years ago was but in small measure the result of anti-slavery sentiment, far less of any zeal for abolition. But every month of the war, every movement of the allies of slavery in the Free States, has been making Abolitionists by the thousand. The masses of any people, however intelligent, are very little moved by abstract principles of hu- manity and justice, until those principles are in- terpreted for them by the stinging commentary of some infringement upon their own rights, and then their instincts and passions, once aroused, do indeed derive an incalculable reinforcement of impulse and intensity from those higher ideas, those sublime traditions, which have no motive political force till they are allied with a sense of immediate personal wrong or imminent peril. Then at last the stars in their courses begin to fight against Sisera. Had any one doubted be- fore that the rights of human nature are unitary, that oppression is of one hue the world over, no matter what the color of the oppressed, — had any one failed to see what the real essence of the contest was, — the efforts of the advocates of
xl ABRAHAM LINCOLN
slavery among ourselves to throw discredit upon the fundamental axioms of the Declaration of Independence and the radical doctrines of Chris- tianity, could not fail to sharpen his eyes.
While every day was bringing the people nearer to the conclusion which all thinking men saw to be inevitable from the beginning, it was wise in Mr. Lincoln to leave the shaping of his policy to events. In this country, where the rough and ready understanding of the people is sure at last to be the controlling power, a pro- found commonsense is the best genius for states- manship. Hitherto the wisdom of the President's measures has been justified by the fact that they have always resulted in more firmly uniting pub- lic opinion. One of the things particularly admirable in the public utterances of President Lincoln is a certain tone of familiar dignity, which, while it is perhaps the most difficult at- tainment of mere style, is also no doubtful indi- cation of personal character. There must be something essentially noble in an elective ruler who can descend to the level of confidential ease without losing respect, something very manly in one who can break through the etiquette of his conventional rank and trust himself to the rea- son and intelligence of those who have elected him. No higher compliment was ever paid to a nation than the simple confidence, the fireside plainness, with which Mr. Lincoln always ad- dresses himself to the reason of the American people. This was, indeed, a true democrat, who grounded himself on the assumption that a democracy can think. "Come, let us reason to- gether about this matter," has been the tone of all his addresses to the people; and accordingly
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL xli
we have never had a chief magistrate who so won to himself the love and at the same time the judgment of his countrymen. To us, that simple confidence of his in the right-mindedness of his fellow-men is very touching, and its success is as strong an argument as we have ever seen in favor of the theory that men can govern them- selves. He never appeals to any vulgar senti- ment, he never alludes to the humbleness of his origin ; it probably never occurred to him, indeed, that there was anything higher to start from than manhood; and he put himself on a level with those he addressed, not by going down to them, but only by taking it for granted that they had brains and would come up to a common ground of reason. In an article lately printed in TJie Nation, Mr. Bayard Taylor mentions the striking fact, that in the foulest dens of the Five Points he found the portrait of Lincoln. The wretched population that makes its hive there threw all its votes and more against him, and yet paid this instinctive tribute to the sweet humanity of his nature. There ignorance sold its vote and took its money, but all that was left of man- hood in them recognized its saint and martyr.
Mr. Lincoln is not in the habit of saying, ''This is my opinion, or my theory," but "This is the conclusion to which, in my judgment, the time has come, and to which, accordingly, the sooner we come the better for us." His policy has been the policy of public opinion based on adequate discussion and on a timely recognition of the influence of passing events in shaping the features of events to come.
One secret of Mr. Lincoln's remarkable suc- cess in captivating the popular mind is undoubt-
xlii THE FIRST AMERICAN
edly an unconsciousness of self which enables him, though under the necessity of constantly using the capital /, to do it without any sugges- tion of egotism. There is no single vowel which men's mouths can pronounce with such difference of effect. That which one shall hide away, as it were behind the substance of his discourse, or, if he bring it to the front, shall use merely to give an agreeable accent of individuality to what he says, another shall make an offensive challenge to the self-satisfaction of all his hear- ers, and an unwarranted intrusion upon each man's sense of personal importance, irritating every pore of his vanity, like a dry northeast wind, to a goose-flesh of opposition and hostility. Mr. Lincoln has never studied Quintilian ; but he has, in the earnest simplicity and unaffected Americanism of his own character, one art of oratory worth all the rest. He forgets himself so entirely in his object as to give his / the sympa- thetic and persuasive effect of Wc with the great body of his countrymen. Homely, dispassionate, showing all the rough-edged process of his thought as it goes along, yet arriving at his conclusions with an honest kind of every-day logic, he is so eminently our representative man, that, when he speaks, it seems as if the people' were listening to their own thinking aloud. The dignity of his thought owes nothing to any cere- monial garb of words, but to the manly move- ment that comes of settled purpose and an en- ergy of reason that knows not what rhetoric means. There has been nothing of Cleon, still less of Strepsiades* striving to underbid him in
* Athenian demagogues, satirized by the comic dramatist Aris- tophanes.
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL xliii
demagogism, to be found in the public utter- ances of Mr. Lincoln. He has always addressed the intelligence of men, never their prejudice, their passion, or their ignorance.
The First American.
Extract from Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemora- tion, July 21, 1865.
By James Russell Lowell.
V.
Whither leads the path To ampler fates that leads? Not down through flowery meads.
To reap an aftermath Of youth's vainglorious weeds; But up the steep, amid the wrath And shock of deadly-hostile creeds, Where the world's best hope and stay By battle's flashes gropes a desperate way, And every turf the fierce foot clings to bleeds. Peace hath her not ignoble wreath. Ere yet the sharp, decisive word Light the black lips of cannon, and the sword
Dreams in its easeful sheath ; But some day the live coal behind the thought, Whether from Baal's stone obscene. Or from the shrine serene Of God's pure altar brought. Bursts up in flame ; the war of tongue and pen Learns with what deadly purpose it was fraught, And, helpless in the fiery passion caught. Shakes all the pillared state with shock of men :
xliv THE FIRST AMERICAN
Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed Confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued. And cries reproachful : ''Was it, then, my praise, And not myself was loved ? Prove now thy truth ; I claim of thee the promise of thy youth ; Give me thy life, or cower in empty phrase, The victim of thy genius, not its mate !" Life may be given in many ways. And loyalty to Truth be sealed As bravely in the closet as the field. So bountiful is Fate; But then to stand beside her. When craven churls deride her, To front a lie in arms and not to yield. This shows, methinks, God's plan And measure of a stalwart man, Limbed like the old heroic breeds, Who stands self-poised on manhood's solid
earth, Not forced to frame excuses for his birth, Fed from within with all the strength he needs.
VI.
Such was he, our Martyr-Chief,
Whom late the Nation he had led, With ashes on her head. Wept with the passion of an angry grief : Forgive me, if from present things I turn To speak what in my heart will beat and burn, And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn.
Nature, they say, doth dote.
And cannot make a man
Save on some worn-out plan.
Repeating us by rote :
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL xlv
For him her Old-World moulds aside she threw; And, choosing sweet clay from the breast Of the unexhausted West, With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true.
How beautiful to see Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed. Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead ; One whose meek flock the people joyed to be, Not lured by any cheat of birth. But by his clear-grained human worth, And brave old wisdom of sincerity ! They knew that outward grace is dust ; They could not choose but trust In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill,
And supple-tempered will That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust. His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind, Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars, A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind ; Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined, Fruitful and friendly for all human-kind. Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars.
Nothing of Europe here, Or then, of Europe fronting mornward still, Ere any names of Serf and Peer Could Nature's equal scheme deface
And thwart her genial will ; Here was a type of the true elder race. And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. I praise him not ; it were too late ; And some innative weakness there must be In him who condescends to victory
xlvi LINCOLN'S PERSONAL APPEARANCE
Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait, Safe in himself as in a fate. So always firmly he : He knew to bide his time, And can his fame abide, Still patient in his simple faith sublime, Till the wise years decide. Great captains, with their guns and drums, Disturb our judgment for the hour, But at last silence comes ; These all are gone, and, standing like a tower^ Our children shall behold his fame.
The kindly-earnest; brave, foreseeing man. Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame. New birth of our new soil, the first American.
Lincoln's Personal Appearance.*
By William H. Herndon.
He was about six feet four inches high, and when he left this city was fifty-one years old, having good health and no gray hairs, or but few on his head. He was thin, wiry, sinewy, raw- boned ; thin through the breast to the back, and narrow across the shoulders ; standing, he leaned forward — was what may be called stoop-shoul- dered, inclining to the consumptive by build. His usual weight was one hundred and sixty pounds. His organization — rather his structure and functions — worked slowly. His blood had to run a long distance from his heart to the ex- tremities of his frame, and his nerve-force had
* From an address delivered in Springfield, Illinois, December 12, 1865.
BY WILLIAM H. HERNDON xlvil
to travel through dry ground a long distance before his muscles were obedient to his will. His structure was loose and leathery ; his body was shrunk and shrivelled, having dark skin, dark hair, — looking w^oe-struck. The whole man, body and mind, worked slowly, creakingly, as if it needed oiling. Physically, he was a very powerful man, lifting with ease four hundred or six hundred pounds. His mind was like his body, and worked slowly but strongly. When he walked, he moved cautiously but firmly, his long arms and hands on them, hanging like giant's hands, swung down by his side. He walked with even tread, the inner sides of his feet being parallel. He put the whole foot flat down on the ground at once, not landing on the heel ; he likewise lifted his foot all at once, not rising from the toe, and hence he had no spring to his walk. He had economy of fall and lift of foot, though he had no spring or apparent ease of motion in his tread. He walked undula- tory, up and down, catching and pocketing tire, weariness, and pain, all up and down his per- son, preventing them from locating. The first opinion of a stranger, or a man who did not ob- serve closely, was that his walk implied shrewd- ness, cunning, — a tricky man; but his was the walk of caution and firmness. In sitting down on a common chair he was no taller than ordinary men. His legs and arms were, abnormally, un- naturally long, and in undue proportion to the balance of his body. It was only when he stood up that he loomed above other men.
Air. Lincoln's head was long and tall from the base of the brain and from the eyebrows. His head ran backwards, his forehead rising as
xlviii LINCOLN'S STATE PAPERS
it ran back at a low angle, like Clay's, and, un- like Webster's, almost perpendicular. The size of his hat, measured at the hatter's block, was yYs, his head being, from ear to ear, 6^/2 inches, and from the front to the back of the brain 8 inches. Thus measured, it was not below the medium size. His forehead was narrow but high ; his hair was dark, almost black, and lay floating where his fingers or the winds left it, piled up at random. His cheek-bones were high, sharp, and prominent; his eyebrows heavy and promi- nent; his jaws were long, upcurved, and heavy; his nose was large, long, and blunt, a little awry towards the right eye ; his chin was long, sharp, and upcurved ; his eyebrows cropped out like a huge rock on the brow of a hill ; his face was I long, sallow, and cadaverous, shrunk, shrivelled, wrinkled, and dry, having here and there a hair on the surface ; his cheeks were leathery ; his ears were large, and ran out almost at right angles from his head, caused partly by heavy hats and partly by nature ; his lower lip was thick, hang- ing, and undercurved, while his chin reached for the lip upcurved; his neck was neat and trim, his head being well balanced on it; there was the lone mole on the right cheek, and Adam's apple on his throat.
Thus stood, walked, acted, and locked Abra- ham Lincoln. He was not a pretty man by any means, nor was he an ugly one ; he was a homely man, careless of his looks, plain-looking and plain-acting. He had no pomp, display, or dig- nity, so-called. He appeared simple in his car- riage and bearing. He was a sad-looking man ; his melancholy dripped from him as he walked. His apparent gloom impressed his friends, and
BY HENRY J. RAYMOND xlix
created a sympathy for him — one means of his great success. He was gloomy, abstracted, and joyous, — rather humorous, — by turns. I do not think he knew what real joy was for many years. ...
Thus, I say, stood and walked and looked this singular man. He was odd, but when that gray eye and face and every feature were lit up by the inward soul in fires of emotion, then it was that all these apparently ugly features sprang into organs of beauty, or sunk themselves into a sea of inspiration that sometimes flooded his face. Sometimes it appeared to me that Lin- coln's soul was just fresh from the presence of its Creator.
[See also "Lincoln's Personal Appearance," page 283, volume five, present edition.]
President Lincoln's State Papers.* By Henry J. Raymond.
No one can read Mr. Lincoln's state papers without perceiving in them a most remarkable faculty of "putting things" so as to command the attention and assent of the common people. His style of thought as well as of expression is thoroughly in harmony with their habitual modes of thinking and of speaking. His in- tellect is keen, emphatically logical in its action, and capable of the closest and most subtle analy- sis : and he uses language for the sole purpose
* From " History of the Administration of President Lincoln," by Henry J. Raymond, 1864. Mr. Raymond was editor of the New York Times, and the Chairman of the Executive NationaJ Committee of the Union (Republican) party at the time.
1 LINCOLN'S STATE PAPERS
of stating, in the clearest and simplest possible form, the precise idea he wishes to convey. He has no pride of intellect — not the slightest desire for display — no thought or purpose but that of making everybody understand precisely what he believes and means to titter. And while this sacrifices the graces of style, it gains immeas- urably in practical force and effect. It gives to his public papers a weight and influence with the mass of the people which no public man of this country has ever before attained. And this is heightened by the atmosphere of humor which seems to pervade his mind, and which is just as natural to it and as attractive and soft- ening a portion of it, as the smoky hues of Indian summer are of the charming season to which they belong. His nature is eminently genial, and he seems to be incapable of cherish- ing an envenomed resentment. And although he is easity touched by whatever is painful, the elasticity of his temper and his ready sense of the humorous break the force of anxieties and responsibilities under which a man of harder though perhaps a higher nature would sink and fail.
General Messages to Congress
GENERAL MESSAGES TO CONGRESS
Message to Congress in Special Session.
July 4, 1861.
Fellozv-citkens of the Senate and House of Representatives: Having been convened on an extraordinary occasion, as authorized by the Constitution, your attention is not called to any ordinary subject of legislation.
At the beginning of the present presidential term, four months ago, the functions of the Fed- eral Government were found to be generally suspended within the several States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Loui- siana, and Florida, excepting only those of the Post-office Department.
Within these States all the forts, arsenals, dockyards, custom-houses, and the like, includ- ing the movable and stationary property in and about them, had been seized, and were held in open hostility to this government, excepting only Forts Pickens, Taylor, and Jefferson, on and near the Florida coast, and Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. The forts thus seized had been put in improved condition, new ones had been built, and armed forces had been organized and were organizing, all avow- edly with the same hostile purpose.
4 STATE PAPERS
The forts remaining in the possession of the Federal Government in and near these States were either besieged or menaced by warhke preparations, and especially Fort Sumter was nearly surrounded by well-protected hostile bat- teries, with gims equal in quality to the best of its own, and outnumbering the latter as per- haps ten to one. A disproportionate share of the Federal muskets and rifles had somehow found their way into these States, and had been seized to be used against the government. Accumula- tions of the public revenue lying within them had been seized for the same object. The navy was scattered in distant seas, leaving but a very small part of it within immediate reach of the government. Officers of the Federal army and navy resigned in great numbers ; and of those resigning a large proportion had taken up arms against the government. Simultaneously, and in connection with all this, the purpose to sever the Federal Union was openly avowed. In accord- ance with this purpose, an ordinance had been adopted in each of these States, declaring the States respectively to be separated from the National Union. A formula for instituting a combined government of these States had been promulgated ; and this illegal organization, in the character of confederate States, was already in- voking recognition, aid, and intervention from foreign powers.
Finding this condition of things, and believing it to be an imperative duty upon the incoming executive to prevent, if possible, the consumma- tion of such attempt to destroy the Federal Union, a choice of means to that end became in- dispensable. This choice was made and was
I
SPECIAL MESSAGE, JULY 4, 1861 5
declared in the inaugural address. The policy chosen looked to the exhaustion of all peaceful measures before a resort to any stronger ones. It sought only to hold the public places and property not already wrested from the govern- ment, and to collect the revenue, relying for the rest on time, discussion, and the ballot-box. It promised a continuance of the mails at govern- ment expense, to the very people who were re- sisting the government; and it gave repeated pledges against any disturbance to any of the people, or any of their rights. Of all that which a President might constitutionally and justifiably do in such a case, everything was forborne with- out which it was believed possible to keep the government on foot.
On the 5th of Alarch (the present incum- bent's first full clay in office), a letter of Major Anderson, commanding at Fort Sumter, writ- ten on the 28th of February and received at the War Department on the 4th of March, was by that department placed in his hands. This letter expressed the professional opinion of the writer that reinforcements could not be thrown into that fort within the time for his relief, rendered necessary by the limited supply of provisions, and with a view of holding possession of the same, with a force of less than twenty thousand good and well-disciplined men. This opinion was concurred in by all the ofificers of his com- mand, and their memoranda on the subject were made inclosures of Major Anderson's let- ter. The whole was immediately laid before Lieutenant-General Scott, who at once concurred with Major Anderson in opinion. On reflec- tion, however, he took full time, consulting with
6 STATE PAPERS
other officers, both of the army and the navy, and at the end of four days came reluctantly but decidedly to the same conclusion as before. He also stated at the same time that no such sufficient force was then at the control of the government, or could be raised and brought to the ground within the time when the provisions in the fort would be exhausted. In a purely military point of view, this reduced the duty of the administration in the case to the mere mat- ter of getting the garrison safely out of the fort. It was believed, however, that to so abandon that position, under the circumstances, would be utterly ruinous ; that the necessity under which it was to be done would not be fully under- stood; that by many it would be construed as a part of a voluntary policy ; that at home it would discourage friends of the Union, embolden its adversaries, and go far to insure to the latter a recognition abroad ; that, in fact, it would be our national destruction consummated. This could not be allowed. Starvation was not yet upon the garrison, and ere it would be reached Fort Pickens might be reinforced. This last would be a clear indication of policy, and would better enable the country to accept the evacua- tion of Fort Sumter as a military necessity. An order was at once directed to be sent for the landing of the troops from the steamship Brook- lyn into Fort Pickens. This order could not go by land, but must take the longer and slower route by sea. The first return news from the order was received just one week before the fall of Fort wSumter. The news itself was that the officer commanding the Sabine, to which vessel the troops had been transferred from the Brook-
SPECIAL MESSAGE, JULY 4, 1861 7
lyn, acting upon some quasi armistice of the late administration (and of the existence of which the present administration, up to the time the order was despatched, had only too vague and uncertain rumors to fix attention), had refused to land the troops. To now reinforce Fort Pick- ens before a crisis would be reached at Fort Sumter was impossible — rendered so by the near exhaustion of provisions in the latter-named fort. In precaution against such a conjuncture, the government had, a few days before, com- menced preparing an expedition as well adapted as might be to relieve Fort Sumter, which expedition was intended to be ultimately used, or not, according to circumstances. The strong- est anticipated case for using it was now pre- sented, and it was resolved to send it forward. As had been intended in this contingency, it was also resolved to notify the governor of South Carolina that he might expect an attempt would be made to provision the fort ; and that, if the attempt should not be resisted, there would be no effort to throw in men, arms, or ammunition, without further notice, or in case of an attack upon the fort. This notice was accordingly given; whereupon the fort was attacked and bombarded to its fall, without even awaiting the arrival of the provisioning expedition.
It is thus seen that the assault upon and re- duction of Fort Sumter was in no sense a mat- ter of self-defense on the part of the assailants. They well knew that the garrison in the fort could by no possibility commit aggression upon them. They knew — they were expressly noti- fied— that the giving of bread to a few brave and hungry men of the garrison was all which would
8 STATE PAPERS
on that occasion be attempted, unless them- selves, by resisting so much, should provoke more. They knew that this government desired to keep the garrison in the fort, not to assail them, but m.erely to maintain visible possession, and thus to preserve the Union from actual and immediate dissolution — trusting, as hereinbefore stated, to time, discussion, and the ballot-box for final adjustment; and they assailed and reduced the fort for precisely the reverse object — to drive out the visible authority of the Federal Union, and thus force it to immediate dissolution. That this was their object the executive well understood ; and having said to them in the in- augural address, ''You can have no conflict with- out being yourselves the aggressors," he took pains not only to keep this declaration good, but also to keep the case so free from the power of ingenious sophistry that the world should not be able to misunderstand it. By the affair at Fort Sumter, with its surrounding circum- stances, that point was reached. Then and thereby the assailants of the government began the conflict of arms, without a gun in sight or in expectancy to return their fire, save only the few in the fort sent to that harbor years before for their own protection, and still ready to give that protection in whatever was lawful. In this act, discarding all else, they have forced upon the country the distinct issue, ''immediate disso- lution or blood."
And this issue embraces more than the fate of the United States. It presents to the whole family of man the question whether a consti- tutional republic or democracy — a government of the people by the same people — can or cannot
SPECIAL MESSAGE, JULY 4, 1861 9
maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic foes. It presents the question whether discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control administration according to organic law in any case, can always, upon the pretenses made in this case, or on any other pretenses, or ar- bitrarily without any pretense, break up their government, and thus practically put an end to free government upon the earth. It forces us to ask: "Is there, in all republics, this inherent and fatal weakness?" ''Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence ?"
So viewing the issue, no choice was left but to call out the war power of the government; and so to resist force employed for its destruc- tion, by force for its preservation.
The call was made, and the response of the country was most gratifying, surpassing in una- nimity and spirit the most sanguine expecta- tion. Yet none of the States commonly called slave States, except Delaware, gave a regiment through regular State organization. A few regi- ments have been organized within some others of those States by individual enterprise, and received into the government service. Of course the seceded States, so called (and to which Texas had been joined about the time of the inauguration), gave no troops to the cause of the Union. The border States, so called, were not uniform in their action, some of them being almost for the Union, while in others — as Vir- ginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas — the Union sentiment was nearly repressed and silenced. The course taken in Virginia was
lo STATE PAPERS
the most remarkable — perhaps the most im- portant. A convention elected by the people of that State to consider the very question of dis- rupting the Federal Union was in session at the capital of Virginia when Fort Sumter fell. To this body the people had chosen a large majority of professed Union men. Almost immediately after the fall of Sumter, many members of that majority went over to the original disunion minority, and with them adopted an ordinance for withdrawing the State from the Union. Whether this change was wrought by their great approval of the assault upon Sumter or their great resentment at the government's resistance to that assault, is not definitely known. Al- though they submitted the ordinance for ratifi- cation to a vote of the people, to be taken on a day then somewhat more than a month distant, the convention and the legislature (which was also in session at the same time and place), with leading men of the State not members of either, immediately commenced acting as if the State were already out of the Union. They pushed military preparations vigorously forward all over the State. They seized the United States armory at Harper's Ferry, and the navy-yard at Gosport, near Norfolk. They received — perhaps invited — into their State large bodies of troops, with their warlike appointments, from the so- called seceded States. They formally entered into a treaty of temporary alliance and coopera- tion with the so-called **Conf.ederate States,'* and sent members to their congress at Mont- gomery. And, finally, they permitted the insur- rectionary government to be transferred to their capital at Richmond.
SPECIAL MESSAGE, JULY 4, 1861 n
The people of Virginia have thus allowed this giant insurrection to make its nest within her borders ; and this government has no choice left but to deal with it where it finds it. And it has the less regret as the loyal citizens have, in due form, claimed its protection. Those loyal citi- zens this government is bound to recognize and protect, as being Virginia.
In the border States, so called, — in fact, the Middle States, — there are those who favor a policy Vv^hich they call ''armed neutrality" ; that is, an arming of those States to prevent the Union forces passing one way, or the disunion the other, over their soil. This would be disunion completed. Figuratively speaking, it would be the building of an impassable wall along the line of separation — and yet not quite an impass- able one, for under the guise of neutrality it would tie the hands of Union men and freely pass supplies from among them to the insurrec- tionists, which it could not do as an open enemy. At a stroke it would take all the trouble off the hands of secession, except only what proceeds from the external blockade. It would do for the disunionists that which, of all things, they most desire — feed them well, and give them disunion without a struggle of their own. It recognizes no fidelity to the Constitution, no obligation to maintain the Union; and while very many who have favored it are doubtless loyal citizens, it is, nevertheless, very injurious in effect.
Recurring to the action of the government, it may be stated that at first a call was made for 75,000 militia, and, rapidly following this, a proclamation was issued for closing the ports of the insurrectionary districts by proceedings in
12 STATE PAPERS
the nature of blockade. So far all was believed to be strictly legal. At this point the insurrec- tionists announced their purpose to enter upon the practice of privateering.
Other calls were made for volunteers to serve for three years, unless sooner discharged, and also for large additions to the regular army and navy. These m.easures, whether strictly legal or not, were ventured upon, under what appeared to be a popular demand and a public necessity; trusting then, as now, that Congress would readily ratify them. It is believed that nothing has been done beyond the constitutional com- petency of Congress.
Soon after the first call for militia, it was considered a duty to authorize the commanding general in proper cases, according to his discre- tion, to suspend the privilege of the writ of 'habeas corpus, or, in other words, to arrest and detain, without resort to the ordinary processes and forms of law, such individuals as he might deem dangerous to the public safety. This au- thority has purposely been exercised but very sparingly. Nevertheless, the legality and propri- ety of what has been done under it are questioned, and the attention of the country has been called to the proposition that one who has sworn to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed'"' should not himself violate them. Of course some consideration was given to the questions of power and propriety before this matter was acted upon. The whole of the laws which were required to be faithfully executed were being resisted and failing of execution in nearly one third of the States. Must they be allowed to finally fail of execution, even had it been per-
SPECIAL MESSAGE, JULY 4, 1S61 13
fectly clear that by the use of the means neces- sary to their execution some single law, made in such extreme tenderness of the citizen's liberty that, practically, it relieves more of the guilty than of the innocent, should to a very limited extent be violated? To state the question more directly, are all the laws but one to go unex- ecuted, and the government itself go to pieces lest that one be violated? Even in such a case, would not the official oath be broken if the gov- ernment should be overthrown, when it was believed that disregarding the single law would tend to preserve it ? But it was not believed that this question was presented. It was not believed that any law was violated. The provision of the Constitution that ''the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the pub- lic safety may require it," is equivalent to a provision — is a provision — that such privilege may be suspended when, in case of rebellion or invasion, the public safety does require it. It was decided that we have a case of rebellion, and that the public safety does require the quali- fied suspension of the privilege of the writ which was authorized to be made. Now it is insisted that Congress, and not the executive, is vested with this power. But the Constitution itself is silent as to which or who is to exercise the power; and as the provision was plainly made for a dangerous emergency, it cannot be believed the framers of the instrument intended that in every case the danger should run its course until Congress could be called together, the very as- sembling of which might be prevented, as was intended in this case, by the rebellion.
14 STATE PAPERS
No more extended argument is now offered, as an opinion at some length will probably be presented by the attorney-general. Whether there shall be any legislation upon the subject, and if any, what, is submitted entirely to the better judgment of Congress.
The forbearance of this government had been so extraordinary and so long continued as to lead some foreign nations to shape their action as if they supposed the early destruction of our National Union was probable. While this, on discovery, gave the executive some concern, he is now happy to say that the sovereignty and rights of the United States are now everywhere practically respected by foreign powers ; and a general sympathy with the country is manifested throughout the world.
The reports of the Secretaries of the Treasury, War, and the Navy will give the information in detail deemed necessary and convenient for your deliberation and action; while the executive and all the departments will stand ready to supply omissions, or to communicate new facts consid- ered important for you to know.
It is now recommended that you give the legal means for making this contest a short and de- cisive one: that you place at the control of the government for the work at least four hundred thousand men and $400,000,000. That number of men is about one tenth of those of proper ages within the regions where, apparently, all are willing to engage ; and the sum is less than a twenty-third part of the money value owned by the men who seem ready to devote the whole. A debt of $600,000,000 now is a less sum per head than was the debt of our Revolution when
SPECIAL MESSAGE, JULY 4, 1861 15
we came out of that struggle; and the money value in the country now bears even a greater proportion to what it was then than does the population. Surely each man has as strong a motive now to preserve our liberties as each had then to establish them.
A right result at this time will be worth more to the world than ten times the men and ten times the money. The evidence reaching us from the country leaves no doubt that the material for the work is abundant, and that it needs only the hand of legislation to give it legal sanction, and the hand of the executive to give it practical shape and efificiency. One of the greatest perplexities of the government is to avoid receiving troops faster than it can provide for them. In a word, the people will save their government if the government itself will do its part only indifferently well.
It might seem, at first thought, to be of little difference whether the present movement at the South be called ''secession" or "rebellion." The movers, however, will understand the difference. At the beginning they knew they could never raise their treason to any respectable magnitude by any name which implies violation of law. They knew their people possessed as much of moral sense, as much of devotion to law and order, and as much pride in and reverence for the history and government of their common country as any other civilized and patriotic peo- ple. They knew they could make no advance- ment directly in the teeth of these strong and noble sentiments. Accordingly, they commenced by an insidious debauching of the public mind. They invented an ingenious sophism which, if
,6 STATE PAPERS
conceded, was followed by perfectly logical steps, through all the incidents, to the complete destruction of the Union. The sophism itself is that any State of the Union may consistently with the National Constitution, and therefore lawfully and peacefully, withdraw from the Union with- out the consent of the Union or of any other State. The little disguise that the supposed right is to be exercised only for just cause, themselves to be the sole judges of its justice, is too thin to merit any notice.
With rebellion thus sugar-coated they have been drugging the public mind of their section for more than thirty years, and until at length they have brought many good men to a willing- ness to take up arms against the government the day after some assemblage of men have en- acted the farcical pretense of taking their State out of the Union, who could have been brought to no such thing the day before.
This sophism derives much, perhaps the whole, of its currency from the assumption that there is some omnipotent and sacred supremacy per- taining to a State — to each State of our Federal Union. Our States have neither more nor less power than that reserved to them in the Union by the Constitution — no one of them ever hav- ing been a State out of the Union. The original ones passed into the Union even before they cast off their British colonial dependence ; and the new ones each came into the Union directly from a condition of dependence, excepting Texas. And even Texas, in its temporary independence, was never designated a State. The new ones only took the designation of States on coming into the Union, while that name was fir-st adopted
SPECIAL MESSAGE, JULY 4, 1861 17
for the old ones in and by the Declaration of Independence. Therein the ''United Colonies" were declared to be "free and independent States"; but even then the object plainly was not to declare their independence of one another or of the Union, but directly the contrary, as their mutual pledge and their mutual action be- fore, at the time, and afterward, abundantly show. The express plighting of faith by each and all of the original thirteen in the Articles of Confederation, two years later, that the Union shall be perpetual, is most conclusive. Having never been States either in substance or in name outside of the Union, whence this magical om- nipotence of ''State Rights," asserting a claim of power to lawfully destroy the Union itself? I\Iuch is said about the "sovereignty" of the States ; but the w^ord even is not in the National Constitution, nor, as is believed, in any of the State constitutions. What is "sovereignty" in the political sense of the term? Would it be far wrong to define it "a political community without a political superior"? Tested by this, no one of our States except Texas ever was a sovereignty. And even Texas gave up the char- acter on coming into the Union; by which act she acknowledged the Constitution of the United States, and the laws and treaties of the United States made in pursuance of the Constitution, to be for her the supreme law of the land. The States have their status in the Union, and they have no other legal status. If they break from this, they can only do so against law and by revo- lution. The Union, and not themselves separate- ly, procured their independenece and their liberty. By conquest or purchase the Union gave each
i8 STATE PAPERS
of them whatever of independence or Hberty it has. The Union is older than any of the States, and, in fact, it created them as States. Orig- inally some dependent colonies made the Union, and, in turn, the Union threw off their old de- pendence for them, and made them States, such as they are. Not one of them ever had a State constitution independent of the Union. Of course, it is not forgotten that all the new States framed their constitutions before they entered the Union — nevertheless, dependent upon and preparatory to coming into the Union.
Unquestionably the States have the powers and rights reserved to them in and by the Na- tional Constitution; but among these surely are not included all conceivable powers, however mischievous or destructive, but, at most, such only as were known in the world at the time as governmental powers; and certainly a power to destroy the government itself had never been known as a governmental, as a merely admin- istrative power. This relative matter of national power and State rights, as a principle, is no other than the principle of generality and locality. Whatever concerns the whole should be con- fided to the whole — to the General Government; while whatever concerns only the State should be left exclusively to the State. This is all there is of the original principle about it. Whether the National Constitution in defining boundaries between the two has applied the principle with exact accuracy, is not to be questioned. We are all bound by that defining, without question.
What is now combated is the position that secession is consistent with the Constitution — is lawful and peaceful. It is not contended that
SPECIAL MESSAGE, JULY 4, 1861 19
there is any express law for it; and nothing should ever be implied as law which leads to unjust or absurd consequences. The nation purchased with money the countries out of which several of these States were formed. Is it just that they shall go off without leave and without refunding? The nation paid very large sums (in the aggregate, I believe, nearly a hundred millions) to relieve Florida of the aboriginal tribes. Is it just that she shall now be off with- out consent or without making any return ? The nation is now in debt for money applied to the benefit of these so-called seceding States in com- mon with the rest. Is it just either that cred- itors shall go unpaid or the remaining States pay the whole? A part of the present national debt was contracted to pay the old debts of Texas. Is it just that she shall leave and pay no part of this herself?
Again, if one State may secede, so may an- other ; and when a'l shall have seceded, none is left to pay the debts. Is this quite just to cred- itors? Did we notify them of this sage view of ours when we borrowed their money? If we now recognize this doctrine by allowing the seceders to go in peace, it is difficult to see what we can do if others choose to go or to extort terms upon which they will promise to re- main.
The seceders insist that our Constitution ad- mits of secession. They have assumed to make a national constitution of their own, in which of necessity they have either discarded or re- tained the right of secession as they insist it exists in ours. If they have discarded it, they thereby admit that on principle it ought not to
20
STATE PAPERS
be in ours. If they have retained it by their own construction of ours, they show that to be con- sistent they must secede from one another when- ever they shall find it the easiest way of settling their debts, or effecting any other selfish or un- just object. The principle itself is one of dis- integration, and upon which no government can possibly endure.
If all the States save one should assert the power to drive that one out of the Union, it is presumed the whole class of seceder politicians would at once deny the power and denounce the act as the greatest outrage upon State rights. But suppose that precisely the same act, instead of being called "driving the one out," should be called "the seceding of the others from that one," it would be exactly what the seceders claim to do, unless, indeed, they make the point that the one, because it is a minority, may rightfully do what the others, because they are a majority, may not rightfully do. These politicians are subtle and profound on the rights of minorities. They are not partial to that power which made the Constitution and speaks from the preamble calling itself "We, the People."
It may well be questioned whether there is to- day a majority of the legally qualified voters of any State, except perhaps South Carolina, in fa- vor of disunion. There is much reason to believe that the Union men are the majority in many, if not in every other one, of the so-called seceded States. The contrary has not been demon- strated in any one of them. It is ventured to affirm this even of Virginia and Tennessee; for the result of an election held in military camps, where the bayonets are all on one side of the
SPECIAL MESSAGE, JULY 4, 1861 21
question voted upon, can scarcely be considered as demonstrating popular sentiment. At such an election, all that large class who are at once for the Union and against coercion would be coerced to vote against the Union.
It may be affirmed without extravagance that the free institutions we enjoy have developed the powers and improved the condition of our whole people beyond any example in the world. Of this we now have a striking and impressive illustration. So large an army as the govern- ment has now on foot was never before known, without a soldier in it but who has taken his place there of his own free choice. But more than this, there are many single regiments whose members, one and another, possess full practical knowledge of ah the arts, sciences, professions, and whatever else, whether useful or elegant, is known in the world ; and there is scarcely one from which there could not be selected a Pres- ident, a cabinet, a congress, and perhaps a court, abundantly competent to administer the gov- ernment itself. Nor do I Say this is not true also in the army of our late friends, now ad- versaries in this contest; but if it is, so much better the reason why the government which has conferred such benefits on both them and us should not be broken up. Whoever in any sec- tion proposes to abandon such a government would do well to consider in deference to what principle it is that he does it — what better he is likely to get in its stead — whether the substi- tute will give, or be intended to give, so much of good to the people? There are some fore- shadowings on this subject. Our adversaries have adopted some declarations of independence
22 STATE PAPERS
in which, unlike the good old one, penned by- Jefferson, they omit the words "all men are cre- ated equal." Why? They have adopted a tem- porary national constitution, in the preamble of which, unlike our good old one, signed by Wash- ington, they omit "We, the People," and substi- tute, "We, the deputies of the sovereign and independent States." Why? Why this delib- erate pressing out of view the rights of men and the authority of the people?
This is essentially a people's contest. On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of gov- ernment whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men — to lift artificial weights from all shoulders ; to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all; to afford all an unfettered start, and a fair chance in the race of life. Yielding to partial and temporary departures, from neces- sity, this is the leading object of the government for whose existence we contend.
I am most happy to believe that the plain people understand and appreciate this. It is worthy of note that while in this, the govern- ment's hour of trial, large numbers of those in the army and navy who have been favored with the offices have resigned and proved false to the hand which had pampered them, not one common soldier or common sailor is known to have de- serted his flag.
Great honor is due to those oflicers who re- mained true, despite the example of their treach- erous associates ; but the greatest honor, and most important fact of all, is the unanimous firmness of the common soldiers and common sailors. To the last man, so far as known, they
SPECIAL MESSAGE, JULY 4, 1861 23
have successfully resisted the traitorous efforts of those whose commands, but an hour before, they obeyed as absolute law. This is the patri- otic instinct of the plain people. They under- stand, without an argument, that the destroying of the government whi'rh wac made by Wash- ington means no good to them.
Our popular government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it our people have already settled — the successful establishing and the successful administering of it. One still remains — its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it. It is now for them to demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly carry an election can also suppress a rebellion ; that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets; and that when ballots have fairly and consti- tutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets ; that there can be no suc- cessful appeal, except to ballots themselves, at succeeding elections. Such will be a great lesson of peace: teaching men that what they cannot take by an election, neither can they take it by a war ; teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war.
Lest there be some uneasiness in the minds of candid men as to what is to be the course of the government toward the Southern States after the rebellion shall have been suppressed, the executive deems it proper to say it will be his purpose then, as ever, to be guided by the Constitution and the laws ; and that he probably will have no different understanding of the pow- ers and duties of the Federal Government rel- atively to the rights of the States and the people,
24 STATE PAPERS
under the Constitution, than that expressed in the inaugural address.
He desires to preserve the government, that it may be administered for all as it was ad- ministered by the men who made it. Loyal citizens everywhere have the right to claim this of their government, and the government has no right to withhold or neglect it. It is not per- ceived that in giving it there is any coercion, any conquest, or any subjugation, in any just sense of those terms.
The Constitution provides, and all the States have accepted the provision, that "the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government." But if a State may lawfully go out of the Union, having done so, it may also discard the repub- lican form of government ; so that to prevent its going out is an indispensable means to the end of maintaining the guarantee mentioned ; and when an end is lawful and obligatory, the indispensable means to it are also lawful and obligatory.
It was with the deepest regret that the execu- tive found the duty of employing the war power in defense of the government forced upon him. He could but perform this duty or surrender the existence of the government. No compro- mise by public servants could, in this case, be a cure; not that compromises are not often proper, but that no popular government can long survive a marked precedent that those who carry an election can only save the government from immediate destruction by giving up the main point upon which the people gave the election. The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. 3, 1861 25
As a private citizen the executive could not have consented that these institutions shall per- ish ; much less could he, in betrayal of so vast and so sacred a trust as the free people have confided to him. He felt that he had no moral right to shrink, nor even to count the chances of his own life in what might follow. In full view of his great responsibility he has, so far, done what he has deemed his duty. You will now, according to your own judgment, perform yours. He sincerely hopes that your views and your actions may so accord with his, as to assure all faithful citizens who have been disturbed in their rights of a certain and speedy restoration to them, under the Constitution and the laws.
And having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear and with manly hearts.
Abraham Lincoln.
Annual Message to Congress.
December 3, 1861.
Fellozv-citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives: In the midst of unprecedented political troubles we have cause of great grati- tude to God for unusual good health and most abundant harvests.
You will not be surprised to learn that, in the peculiar exigencies of the times, our intercourse with foreign nations has been attended with pro- found solicitude, chiefly turning upon our own domestic affairs.
A disloyal portion of the American people
26 STATE PAPERS
have, during the whole year, been engaged in an attempt to divide and destroy the Union. A nation which endures factious domestic division is exposed to disrespect abroad; and one party, if not both, is sure, sooner or later, to invoke foreign intervention. Nations thus tempted to interfere are not always able to resist the coun- sels of seeming expediency and ungenerous am- bition, although measures adopted under such influences seldom fail to be unfortunate and in- jurious to those adopting them.
The disloyal citizens of the United States who have offered the ruin of our country in return for the aid and comfort which they have invoked abroad, have received less patronage and en- couragement than they probably expected. If it were just to suppose, as the insurgents have seemed to assume, that foreign nations in this case, discarding all moral, social, and treaty obligations, would act solely and selfishly for the most speedy restoration of commerce, including especially, the acquisition of cotton, those nations appear as yet not to have seen their way to their object more directly or clearly through the de- struction than through the preservation of the Union. If we could dare to believe that foreign nations are actuated by no higher principle than this, I am quite sure a sound argument could be made to show them that they can reach their aim more readily and easily by aiding to crush this rebellion than by giving encouragement to it.
The principal lever relied on by the insur- gents for exciting foreign nations to hostility against us, as already intimated, is the embar- rassment of commerce. Those nations, however, not improbably saw from the first that it was
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. 3, 1S61 27
the Union which made as well our foreign as our domestic commerce. They can scarcely have failed to perceive that the effort for dis- union produces the existing difficulty ; and that one strong nation promises more durable peace and a more extensive, valuable, and reliable commerce than can the same nation broken in hostile fragments.
It is not rny purpose to review our discussions with foreign states, because, whatever might be their wishes or dispositions, the integrity of our country and the stability of our government mainly depend not upon them, but on the loyalty, virtue, patriotism, and intelligence of the Ameri- can people. The correspondence itself, with the usual reservations, is herewith submitted.
I venture to hope it will appear that we have practised prudence and liberality toward foreign powers, averting causes of irritation, and with firmness maintaining our own rights and honor.
Since, however, it is apparent that here, as in every other state, foreign dangers necessarily attend domestic difficulties, I recommend that adequate and ample measures be adopted for maintaining the public defenses on every side. While under this general recommendation pro- vision for defending our sea-coast line readily occurs to the mind, I also in the same connection ask the attention of Congress to our great lakes and rivers. It is believed that some fortifications and depots of arms and munitions, with harbor and navigation improvements, all at well-selected points upon these, would be of great importance to the national defense and preservation. I ask attention to the views of the Secretary of War,
28 STATE PAPERS
expressed in his report upon the same general subject.
I deem it of importance that the loyal regions of East Tennessee and western North Carolina should be connected with Kentucky and other faithful parts of the Union by railroad. I therefore recommend as a military measure that Congress provide for the construction of such road as speedily as possible. Kentucky, no doubt, will cooperate, and, through her legislature, make the most judicious selection of a line. The northern terminus must connect with some exist- ing railroad ; and whether the route shall be from Lexington or Nicholas ville to the Cum- berland Gap, or from Lebanon to the Tennessee line, in the direction of Knoxville, or on some still different line, can easily be determined. Kentucky and the General Government cooperat- ing, the work can be completed in a very short time; and when done it will be not only of vast present usefulness, but also a valuable per- manent improvement, worth its cost in all the future.
Some treaties, designed chiefly for the interests of commerce, and having no grave political importance, have been negotiated, and will be submitted to the Senate for their considera- tion.
Although we have failed to induce some of the commercial powers to adopt a desirable meliora- tion of the rigor of maritime war, we have re- moved all obstructions from the way of this humane reform, except such as are merely of temporary and accidental occurrence.
I invite your attention to the correspondence between her Britannic Majesty's minister ac-
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. 3, 1861 29
credited to this government, and the Secretary of State, relative to the detention of the British ship Perthshire, in June last, by the United States steamer Massachusetts, for a supposed breach of the blockade. As this detention was occasioned by an obvious misapprehension of the facts, and as justice requires that we should commit no belligerent act not founded in strict right, as sanctioned by public law, I recommend that an appropriation be made to satisfy the rea- sonable demand of the owners of the vessel for her detention.
I repeat the recommendation of my predeces- sor, in his annual message to Congress in De- cember last, in regard to the disposition of the surplus which will probably remain after satis- fying the claims of American citizens against China, pursuant to the awards of the commis- sioners under the act of the 3d of March, 1859. If, however, it should not be deemed advisable to carry that recommendation into effect, I would suggest that authority be given for investing the principal, over the proceeds of the surplus re- ferred to, in good securities, with a view to the satisfaction of such other just claims of our citi- zens against China as are not unlikely to arise hereafter in the course of our extensive trade with that empire.
By the act of the 5th of August last. Congress authorized the President to instruct the com- manders of suitable vessels to defend themselves against, and to capture, pirates. This authority has been exercised in a single instance only. For the more effectual protection of our exten- sive and valuable commerce, in the eastern seas especially, it seems to me that it would also be
30 STATE PAPERS
advisable to authorize the commanders of sailing vessels to recapture any prizes which pirates may make of United States vessels and their cargoes, and the consular courts, now established by law in eastern countries, to adjudicate the cases, in the event that this should not be objected to by the local authorities.
If any good reason exists why we should per- severe longer in withholding our recognition of the independence and sovereignty of Hayti and Liberia, I am unable to discern it. Unwilling, however, to inaugurate a novel policy in regard to them without the approbation of Congress, I submit for your consideration the expedienc3; of an appropriation for maintaining a charge d'affaires near each of those new states. It does not admit of doubt that important commercial advantages might be secured by favorable treaties with them.
The operations of the treasury during the pe- riod which elapsed since your adjournment have been conducted with signal success. The pa- triotism of the people has placed at the disposal of the government the large means demanded by the public exigencies. Much of the national loan has been taken by citizens of the industrial classes whose confidence in their country's faith, and zeal for their country's deliverance from present peril, have induced them to contribute to the support of the government the whole of their limited acquisitions. This fact imposes peculiar obligations to economy in disbursement and en- ergy in action.
The revenue from all sources, including loans, for the financial year ending on the 30th June, 1861, was $86,835,900.27, and the expenditures
'ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. s> 1861 31
for the same period, including payments on ac- count of the pubhc debt, were $84,578,83447; leaving a balance in the treasury, on the ist of July, of $2,257,065,80. For the first quarter of the financial year ending on the 30th of Sep- tember, 1861, the receipts from all sources, including the balance of ist of July, were $102,532,509.27, and the expenses $98,239,733.- 09; leaving a balance on the ist October, 1861, of $4,292,776.18.
Estimates for the remaining three quarters of the year, and for the financial year 1863, to- gether with his views of ways and means for meeting the demands contemplated by them, will be submitted to Congress by the Secretary of the Treasury. It is gratifying to know that the expenditures made necessary by the rebellion are not beyond the resources of the loyal people, and to believe that the same patriotism which has thus far sustained the government will continue to sustain it till peace and union shall again bless the land.
I respectfully refer to the report of the Sec- retary of War for information respecting the numerical strength of the army, and for recom- mendations having in view an increase of its efiiciency and the well-being of the various branches of the service intrusted to his care. It is gratifying to know that the patriotism of the people has proved equal to the occasion, and that the number of troops tendered greatly ex- ceeds the force which Congress authorized me to call into the field.
I refer with pleasure to those portions of his report which make allusion to the creditable degree of discipline already attained by our
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STATE PAPERS
troops, and to the excellent sanitary condition of the entire army.
The recommendation of the secretary for an organization of the militia upon a uniform basis is a subject of vital importance to the future safety of the country, and is commended to the serious attention of Congress.
The large addition to the regular army, in connection with the defection that has so con- siderably diminished the number of its officers, gives peculiar importance to his recommendation for increasing the corps of cadets to the greatest capacity of the Military Academy.
By mere omission, I presume. Congress has failed to provide chaplains for hospitals occupied by volunteers. This subject was brought to my notice, and I was induced to draw up the form of a letter, one copy of which, properly ad- dressed, has been delivered to each of the per- sons, and at the dates respectively named and stated, in a schedule, containing also the form of the letter, marked A, and herewith trans- mitted.
These gentlemen, I understand, entered upon the duties designated at the times respectively stated in the schedule, and have labored faith- fully therein ever since. I therefore recommend that they be compensated at the same rate as chai)lains in the army. I further suggest that general provision be made for chaplains to serve at hospitals as well as with regiments.
The report of the Secretary of the Navy pre- sents in detail the operations of that branch of the service, the activity and energy which have characterized its administration, and the results of measures to increase its efficiency and power.
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. 3, 1861 33
Such have been the additions, by construction and purchase, that it may ahiiost be said a navy has been created and brought into service since our difficulties commenced.
Besides blockading our extensive coast, squad- rons larger than ever before assembled under our flag have been put afloat and performed deeds which have increased our naval re- nown.
I would invite special attention to the recom- mendation of the secretary for a more perfect organization of the navy by introducing addi- tional grades in the service.
The present organization is defective and un- satisfactory, and the suggestions submitted by the department will, it is believed, if adopted, obviate the difficulties alluded to, promote harmony, and increase the efficiency of the navy.
There are three vacancies on the bench of the Supreme Court — two by the decease of Justices Daniel and ]\IcLean, and one by the resignation of Justice Campbell. I have so far forborne making nominations to fill these vacancies for reasons which I v/ill now state. Two of the out- going judges resided within the States now over- run by revolt; so that if successors were ap- pointed in the same localities they could not now serve upon their circuits ; and many of the most competent men there probably would not take the personal hazard of accepting to serve, even here, upon the supreme bench. I have been un- willing to throw all the appointments north- ward, thus disabling myself from doing justice to the South on the return of peace; although I may remark that to transfer to the North one
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STATE PAPERS
which has heretofore been in the South, would not, with reference to territory and population, be unjust.
During the long and brilliant judicial career of Judge AIcLean his circuit grew into an em- pire,— altogether too large for any one judge to give the courts therein more than a nominal attendance, — rising in population from 1,470,018 in 1830, to 6,151,405 in i860.
Besides this, the country generally has out- grown our present judicial system. If uniform- ity was at all intended, the system requires that all the States shall be accommodated with circuit courts, attended by supreme judges, while, in fact, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Florida, Texas, California, and Oregon have never had any such courts. Nor can this well be remedied without a change of the system ; because the add- ing of judges to the Supreme Court, enough for the accommodation of all parts of the country, with circuit courts, would create a court altogeth- er too numerous for a judicial body of any sort. And the* evil, if it be one, will increase as new States come into the Union. Circuit courts are useful, or they are not useful. If useful, no State should be denied them; if not useful, no State should have them. Let them be provided for all, or abolished as to all.
Three modifications occur to me, either of which, I think, would be an improvement upon our present system. Let the Supreme Court be of convenient number in any event. Then, first, let the whole country be divided into circuits of convenient size, the supreme judges to serve in a number of them corresponding to their own number, and independent circuit judges to be
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. 3, 1861 35
provided for the rest. Or, secondly, let the su- preme judges be relieved from circuit duties, and circuit judges provided for all the circuits. Or, thirdly, dispense with circuit courts altogether, leaving the judicial functions wholly to the dis- trict courts and an independent Supreme Court.
I respectfully recommend to the consideration of Congress the present condition of the statute laws, with the hope that Congress will be able to find an easy remedy for many of the inconveniences and evils which constantly embarrass those engaged in the prac- tical administration of them. Since the organi- zation of the government, Congress has enacted some 5000 acts and joint resolutions, which fill more than 6000 closely printed pages, and are scattered through many volumes. Many of these acts have been drawn in haste and without suf- ficient caution, so that their provisions are often obscure in themselves, or in conflict with each other, or at least so doubtful as to render it very difficult for even the best-informed persons to ascertain precisely what the statute law really is.
It seems to me very important that the statute laws should be made as plain and intelligible as possible, and be reduced to as small a compass as may consist with the fulness and precision of the will of the legislature and the perspicuity of its language. This, well done, would, I think, greatly facilitate the labors of those whose duty it is to assist in the administration of the laws, and would be a lasting benefit to the people by placing before them, in a more accessible and in- telligible form, the laws which so deeply concern their interests and their duties.
I am informed by some whose opinions I re-
36 STATE PAPERS
spect that all the acts of Congress now in force, and of a permanent and general nature, might be revised and rewritten so as to be embraced in one volume (or, at most, two volumes) of ordinary and convenient size; and I respectfully recommend to Congress to consider of the sub- ject, and, if my suggestion be approved, to de- vise such plan as to their wisdom shall seem most proper for the attainment of the end proposed.
One of the unavoidable consequences of the present insurrection is the entire suppression, in many places, of all the ordinary means of ad- ministering civil justice by the officers, and in the forms of existing law. This is the case, in whole or in part, in all the insurgent States ; and as our armies advance upon and take possession of parts of those States, the practical evil becomes more apparent. There are no courts nor offi- cers to whom the citizens of other States may apply for the enforcement of their lawful claims against citizens of the insurgent States; and there is a vast amount of debt constituting such claims. Some have estimated it as high as $200,000,000, due, in large part, from insur- gents in open rebellion to loyal citizens who are, even now, making great sacrifices in the dis- charge of their patriotic duty to support the government.
Under these circumstances, I have been ur- gently solicited to establish, by military power, courts to administer summary justice in such cases. I have thus far declined to do it, not because I had any doubt that the end proposed — the collection of the debts — was just and right in itself, but because I had been unwilling to go beyond the pressure of necessity in the un-
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. 3, 1861 37
usual exercise of power. But the powers of Congress, I suppose, are equal to the anomalous occasion, and therefore I refer the whole mat- ter to Congress, with the hope that a plan may be devised for the administration of justice in all such parts of the insurgent States and Ter- ritories as may be under the control of this government, whether by a voluntary return to allegiance and order, or by the power of our arms ; this, however, not to be a permanent institution, but a temporary substitute, and to cease as soon as the ordinary courts can be re- established in peace.
It is important that some more convenient means should be provided, if possible, for the adjustment of claims against the government, especially in view of their increased number by reason of the war. It is as much the duty of government to render prompt justice against itself, in favor of citizens, as it is to administer the same between private individuals. The in- vestigation and adjudication of claims in their nature belong to the judicial department; be- sides, it is apparent that the attention of Congress will be more than usually engaged, for some time to come, with great national questions. It was intended, by the organization of the Court of Claims, mainly to remiove this branch of business from the halls of Congress ; but while the court has proved to be an effective and valuable means of investigation, it in great degree fails to effect the object of its creation for want of power to make its judgments final.
Fully aware of the delicacy, not to say the danger, of the subject, I commend to your care- ful consideration whether this power of making
3$ STATE PAPERS
judgments final may not properly be given to the court, reserving the right of appeal on ques- tions of law to the Supreme Court, with such other provisions as experience may have shown to be necessary.
I ask attention to the report of the Postmaster- General, the following being a summary state- ment of the condition of the department :
The revenue from all sources during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1861, including the annual permanent appropriation of $700,000 for the transportation of "free mail matter," was $9,- 049,296.40, being about two per cent, less than the revenue for i860.
The expenditures were $13,606,759.11, show- ing a decrease of more than eight per cent, as compared with those of the previous year, and leaving an excess of expenditure over the reve- nue for the last fiscal year of $4,557,462.71.
The gross revenue for the year ending June 30, 1863, is estimated at an increase of four per cent, on that of 1861, making $8,683,000, to which should be added the earnings of the de- partment in carrying free matter, viz., $700,000, making $9,383,000.
The total expenditures for 1863 are estimated at $12,528,000. leaving an estimated deficiency ?f $3'i45'000 to be supplied from the treasury in addition to the permanent appropriation.
The present insurrection shows, I think, that the extension of this District across the Potomac River, at the time of establishing the capital here, was eminently wise, and consequently that the relinquishment of that portion of it which lies within the State of Virginia was unwise and dangerous. I submit for your consideration the
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. 3, 1861 39
expediency of regaining that part of the Dis- trict and the restoration of the original bound- aries thereof, through negotiations with the State of Virginia.
The report of the Secretary of the Interior, with the accompanying documents, exhibits the condition of the several branches of the public business pertaining to that department. The depressing influences of the insurrection have been especially felt in the operations of the Patent and General Land Offices. The cash re- ceipts from the sales of public lands during the past year have exceeded the expenses of our land system only about $200,000. The sales have been entirely suspended in the Southern States, while the interruptions to the business of the country, and the diversion of large numbers of men from labor to military service, have ob- structed settlements in the new States and Terri- tories of the Northwest.
The receipts of the Patent Office have declined in nine months about $100,000, rendering a large reduction of the force employed necessary to make it self-sustaining.
The demands upon the Pension Office will be largely increased by the insurrection. Numerous applications for pensions, based upon the casual- ties of the existing war, have already been made. There is reason to believe that many who are now upon the pension rolls and in receipt of the bounty of the government are in the ranks of the insurgent army, or giving them aid and com- fort. The Secretary of the Interior has directed a suspension of the payment of the pensions of such persons upon proof of their disloyalty. I recommend that Congress authorize that officer
40 STATE PAPERS
to cause the names of such persons to be stricken from the pens'on rolls.
The relations of the government with the In- dian tribes have been greatly disturbed by the insurrection, especially in the Southern Super- intendency and in that of New Mexico. The Indian country south of Kansas is in the pos- session of insurgents from Texas and Arkansas. The agents of the United States appointed since the 4th of March for this superintendency have been unable to reach their posts, while the most of those who were in office before that time have espoused the insurrectionary cause, and assume to exercise the powers of agents by virtue of commissions from the insurrectionists. It has been stated in the public press that a portion of those Indians have been organized as a mili- tary force, and are attached to the army of the insurgents. Although the government has no official information upon this subject, letters have been written to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs by several prominent chiefs, giving as- surance of their loyalty to the United States, and expressing a wish for the presence of Federal troops to protect them. It is believed that upon the repossession of the country by the Federal forces the Indians will readily cease all hostile demonstrations and resume their former relations to the government.
Agriculture, confessedly the largest interest of the nation, has not a department, nor a bureau, but a clerkship only, assigned to it in the gov- ernment. While it is fortunate that this great interest is so independent in its nature as to not have demanded and extorted more from the gov- ernment, I respectfully ask Congress to consider
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. 3, 1861 41
whether something more cannot be given volun- tarily with general advantage.
Annual reports exhibiting the condition of our agriculture, commerce, and manufactures would present a fund of information of great practical value to the country. While I make no suggestion as to details, I venture the opinion that an agricultural and statistical bureau might profitably be organized.
The execution of the laws for the suppression of the African slave-trade has been confided to the Department of the Interior. It is a subject of gratulation that the efforts which have been made for the suppression of this inhuman traffic have been recently attended with unusual suc- cess. Five vessels being fitted out for the slave- trade have been seized and condemned. Two mates of vessels engaged in the trade, and one person in equipping a vessel as a slaver, have been convicted and subjected to the penalty of fine and imprisonment, and one captain, taken with a cargo of Africans on board his vessel, has been convicted of the highest grade of offense under our laws, the punishment of which is death.
The Territories of Colorado, Dakota, and Nevada, created by the last Congress, have been organized, and civil administration has been in- augurated therein under auspices especially gratifying when it is considered that the leaven of treason w^as found existing in some of these new countries when the Federal officers arrived there.
The abundant natural resources of these Ter- ritories, with the security and protection afforded by organized government, will doubtless invite
42 STATE PAPERS
to them a large immigration when peace shall restore the business of the country to its accus- tomed channels. I submit the resolutions of the legislature of Colorado, which evidence the pa- triotic spirit of the people of the Territory. So far the authority of the United States has been upheld in all the Territories, as it is hoped it will be in the future. I commend their interests and defense to the enlightened and generous care of Congress.
I recommend to the favorable consideration of Congress the interests of the District of Columbia. The insurrection has been the cause of much suffering and sacrifice to its inhabitants ; and as they have no representative in Congress, that body should not overlook their just claims upon the government.
At your late session a joint resolution was adopted authorizing the President to take meas- ures for facilitating a proper representation of the industrial interests of the United States at the exhibition of the industry of all nations to be holden at London in the year 1862. I regret to say I have been unable to give personal at- tention to this subject — a subject at once so in- teresting in itself, and so extensively and inti- mately connected with the material prosperity of the world. Through the Secretaries of State and of the Interior a plan, or system, has been devised and partly matured, and which will be laid before you.
Under and by virtue of the act of Congress entitled ''An act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes," approved August 6, 1 86 1, the legal claims of certain persons to the labor and service of certain other persons have
'ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. 3, 1861 43
become forfeited; and numbers of the latter, thus Hberated, are already dependent on the United States, and must be provided for in some way. Besides this, it is not impossible that some of the States will pass similar enactments for their own benefit respectively, and by operation of which persons of the same class will be thrown upon them for disposal. In such case I recom- mend that Congress provide for accepting such persons from such States, according to some mode of valuation, in lieu, pro tanto, of direct taxes, or upon some other plan to be agreed on with such States respectively, that such per- sons, on such acceptance by the General Gov- ernment, be at once deemed free; and that, in any event, steps be taken for colonizing both classes (or the one first mentioned, if the other shall not be brought into existence) at some place or places in a climate congenial to them. It might be well to consider, too, whether the free colored people already in the United States could not, so far as individuals may desire, be included in such colonization.
To carry out the plan of colonization may involve the acquiring of territory, and also the appropriation of money beyond that to be ex- pended in the territorial acquisition. Having practised the acquisition of territory for nearly sixty years, the question of constitutional power to do so is no longer an open one with us. The power was questioned at first by Mr. Jefiferson, who, however, in the purchase of Louisiana, yielded his scruples on the plea of great expedi- ency. If it be said that the only legitimate ob- ject of acquiring territory is to furnish homes for white men, this measure effects that object;
44 STATE PAPERS
for the emigration of colored men leaves addi- tional room for white men remaining or coming here. Mr. Jefferson, however, placed the impor- tance of procuring Louisiana more on political and commercial grounds than on providing room for population.
On this whole proposition, including the ap- propriation of money with the acquisition of territory, does not the expediency amount to absolute necessity — that without which the gov- ernment itself cannot be perpetuated?
The war continues. In considering the policy to be adopted for suppressing the insurrection, I have been anxious and careful that the inevi- table conflict for this purpose shall not degenerate into a violent and remorseless revolutionary struggle. I have, therefore, in every case thought it proper to keep the integrity of the Union prominent as the primary object of the contest on our part, leaving all questions which are not of vital military importance to the more delib- erate action of the legislature.
In the exercise of my best discretion I have adhered to the blockade of the ports held by the insurgents, instead of putting in force, by proc- lamation, the law of Congress enacted at the last session for closing those ports.
So also, obeying the dictates of prudence as well as the obligations of law, instead of tran- scending I have adhered to the act of Congress to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes. If a new law upon the same subject shall be proposed, its propriety will be duly con- sidered. The Union must be preserved ; and hence all indispensable means must be employed. We should not be in haste to determine that
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. 3, 1861 45
radical and extreme measures, which may reach the loyal as well as the disloyal, are indispensable.
The inaugural address at the beginning of the administration, and the message to Congress at the late special session, were both mainly devoted to the domestic controversy out of which the insurrection and consequent war have sprung. Nothing now occurs to add or subtract, to or from, the principles or general purposes stated and expressed in those documents.
The last ray of hope for preserving the Union peaceably expired at the assault upon Fort Sum- ter ; and a general review of what has occurred since may not be unprofitable. What was pain- fully uncertain then is much better defined and more distinct now; and the progress of events is plainly in the right direction. The insurgents confidently claimed a strong support from north of Mason and Dixon's line; and the friends of the Union were not free from apprehension on the point. This, however, was soon settled def- initely, and on the right side. South of the line, noble little Delaware led off right from the first. Maryland was made to seem against the Union. Our soldiers were assaulted, bridges were burned, and railroads torn up within her limits, and we were many days, at one time, without the ability to bring a single regiment over her soil to the capital. Now her bridges and railroads are repaired and open to the government ; she already gives seven regiments to the cause of the Union and none to the enemy; and her people, at a regular election, have sustained the Union by a larger majority and a larger aggregate vote than they ever before gave to any candidate or any question. Kentucky, too, for some time in
46 STATE PAPERS
doubt, is now decidedly, and, I think, unchange- ably, ranged on the side of the Union. Missouri is comparatively quiet, and, I believe, cannot again be overrun by the insurrectionists. These three States of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, neither of which would promise a single soldier at first, have now an aggregate of not less than forty thousand in the field for the Union, while of their citizens certainly not more than a third of that number, and they of doubtful where- abouts and doubtful existence, are in arms against it. After a somewhat bloody struggle of months, winter closes on the Union people of western Virginia, leaving them masters of their own country.
An insurgent force of about 1500, for months dominating the narrow peninsular region con- stituting the counties of Accomac and North- ampton, and known as the eastern shore of Vir- ginia, together with some contiguous parts of IMaryland, have laid down their arms, and the people there have renewed their allegiance to and accepted the protection of the old flag. This leaves no armed insurrectionist north of the Potomac or east of the Chesapeake.
Also we have obtained a footing at each of the isolated points, on the southern coast, of Hatteras, Port Royal, Tybee Island, near Savan- nah, and Ship Island ; and we likewise have some general accounts of popular movements in behalf of the Union in North Carolina and Tennessee.
These things demonstrate that the cause of the Union is advancing steadily and certainly south- ward.
Since your last adjournment Lieutenant-Gen- eral Scott has retired from the head of the army.
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. 3, 1861 47
During his long life the nation has not been unmindful of his merit; yet, on calling to mind how faithfully, ably, and brilliantly he has served the country from a time far back in our his- tory when few of the now living had been born, and thenceforward continually, I cannot but think we are still his debtors. I submit, there- fore, for your consideration what further mark of recognition is due to him and to ourselves as a grateful people.
AVith the retirement of General Scott came the executive duty of appointing in his stead a general-in-chief of the army. It is a fortunate circumstance that neither in council nor country was there, so far as I know, any difference of opinion as to the proper person to be selected. The retiring chief repeatedly expressed his judg- ment in favor of General AlcClellan for the po- sition, and in this the nation seemed to give a unanimous concurrence. The designation of General AlcClellan is, therefore, in considerable degree the selection of the country as well as of the executive, and hence there is better reason to hope there will be given him the confidence and cordial support thus far by fair implication prom- ised, and without which he cannot with so full efficiency serve the country.
It has been said that one bad general is better than two good ones; and the saying is true, if taken to mean no more than that an army is bet- ter directed by a single mind, though inferior, than by two superior ones at variance and cross- purposes with each other.
And the same is true in all joint operations wherein those engaged can have none but a com- mon end in view, and can differ only as to the
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choice of means. In a storm at sea no one on board can wish the ship to sink; and yet not infrequently all go down together because too many will direct, and no single mind can be al- lowed to control.
It continues to develop that the insurrection is largely, if not exclusively, a war upon the first principle of popular government — the rights of the people. Conclusive evidence of this is found in the most grave and maturely consid- ered public documents as well as in the general tone of the insurgents. In those documents we find the abridgment of the existing right of suffrage and the denial to the people of all right to participate in the selection of public officers except the legislative, boldy advocated, with labored arguments to prove that large control of the people in government is the source of all political evil. Monarchy itself is sometimes hinted at as a possible refuge from the power of the people.
In my present position I could scarcely be justified were I to omit raising a warning voice against this approach of returning despotism.
It is not needed nor fitting here that a gen- eral argument should be made in favor of pop- ular institutions ; but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor, in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in con- nection with capital : that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that cap-
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. 3, 1861 49
ital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them and drive them to it without their consent. Hav- ing proceeded thus far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And, further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.
Now, there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these as- sumptions are false, and all inferences from them, are groundless.
Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of the community exists within that relation. A few men own capital, and that few avoid labor them- selves, and with their capital hire or buy another few to labor for them. A large majority be- long to neither class — neither work for others nor have others working for them. In most of the Southern States a majority of the whole people, of all colors, are neither slaves nor mas- ters : while in the Northern a large majority are neither hirers nor hired. Men with their fam- ilies— wives, sons, and daughters — work for themselves, on their farms, in their houses, and
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in their shops, taking the whole product to them- selves, and asking no favors of capital on the one hand, nor of hired laborers or slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a considerable number of persons mingle their own labor with capital — that is, they labor with their own hands and also buy or hire others to labor for tiiem; but this is only a mixed and not a distinct class. No principle stated is disturbed by the existence of this mixed class.
Again, as has already been said, there is not, of necessity, any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life. Many independent men everywhere in these States, a few years back in their lives, were hired laborers. The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for him- self, then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This is the just and generous and prosperous system which opens the way to all — gives hope to all, and consequent energy and progress and improvement of condition to all. No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty — none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned. Let them beware of sur- rendering a political power which they already possess, and which, if surrendered, will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they, and to fix new disabilities and bur- dens upon them, till all of liberty shall be lost.
From the first taking of our national census ib the last are seventy years; and we find our population at the end of the period eight times
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. i, 1862 51
as great as it was at the beginning. The increase of those other things which men deem desirable has been even greater. We thus have, at one view, what the popular principle, applied to gov- ernment, through the machinery of the States and the Union, has produced in a given time; and also what, if firmly maintained, it promises for the future. There are already among us those who, if the Union be preserved, will live to see it contain 250,000,000. The struggle of to-day is not altogether for to-day — it is for a vast future also. With a reliance on Providence all the more firm and earnest, let us proceed in the great task which events have devolved upon us.
Abraham Lincoln.
Annual Message to Congress.
December i, 1862.
Fellow-citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives: Since your last annual assem- bling another year of health and bountiful har- vests has passed; and while it has not pleased the Almighty to bless us with a return of peace, we can but press on, guided by the best light he gives us, trusting that in his own good time and wise way all will yet be well.
The correspondence touching foreign affairs which has taken place during the last year is herewith submitted, in virtual compliance with a request to that effect, made by the House of Representatives near the close of the last ses- sion of Congress.
If the condition of our relations with other
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STATE PAPERS
nations is less gratifying than it has itsually been at former periods, it is certainly more satis- factory than a nation so unhappily distracted as we are might reasonably have apprehended. In the month of June last there were some grounds to expect that the maritime powers which, at the beginning of our domestic diffi- culties, so unwisely and unnecessarily, as we think, recognized the insurgents as a belligerent, would soon recede from that position, which has proved only less injurious to themselves than to our own country. But the temporary reverses which afterward befell the national arms, and which were exaggerated by our own disloyal cit- izens abroad, have hitherto delayed that act of simple justice.
The civil war, which has so radically changed, for the moment, the occupations and habits of the American people, has necessarily disturbed the social condition, and affected very deeply the prosperity of the nations with which we have car- ried on a commerce that has been steadily in- creasing throughout a period of half a century. It has, at the same time, excited political ambi- tions and apprehensions which have produced a profound agitation throughout the civilized world. In this unusual agitation we have for- borne from taking part in any controversy be- tween foreign states, and between parties or factions in such states. We have attempted no propagandism, and acknowledged no revolution. But we have left to every nation the exclusive conduct and management of its own affairs. Our struggle has been, of course, contemplated by foreign nations with reference less to its own merits than to its supposed and often exaggerated
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. i, 1862 53
effects and consequences resulting to those na- tions themselves. Nevertheless, complaint on the part of this government, even if it were just, would certainly be unwise.
The treaty with Great Britain for the sup- pression of the slave-trade has been put into operation with a good prospect of complete suc- cess. It is an occasion of special pleasure to acknowledge that the execution of it on the part of her Majesty's government has been marked with a jealous respect for the authority of the United States, and the rights of their moral and loyal citizens.
The convention with Hanover for the abolition of the state dues has been carried into full effect under the act of Congress for that pur- pose.
A blockade of three thousand miles of sea-coast could not be established and vigorously enforced, in a season of great commercial activity like the present, without committing occasional mis- takes, and inflicting unintentional injuries upon foreign nations and their subjects.
A civil war occurring in a country where for- eigners reside and carry on trade under treaty stipulations, is necessarily fruitful of complaints of the violation of neutral rights. All such col- lisions tend to excite misapprehensions, and pos- sibly to produce mutual reclamations between nations which have a common interest in pre- serving peace and friendship. In clear cases of these kinds I have, so far as possible, heard and redressed complaints which have been presented by friendly powers. There is still, however, a large and an augmenting number of doubtful cases upon which the government is unable to
54 STATE PAPERS
agree with the governments whose protection is demanded by the claimants. There are, more- over, many cases in which the United States or their citizens suffer wrongs from the naval or military authorities of foreign nations, which the governments of those states are not at once prepared to redress. I have proposed to some of the foreign states thus interested mutual con- ventions to examine and adjust such complaints. This proposition has been made especially to Great Britain, to France, to Spain, and to Prussia. In each case it has been kindly received, but has not yet been formally adopted.
I deem it my duty to recommend an appropria- tion in behalf of the owners of the Norwegian bark Admiral P. Tordenskiold, which vessel was, in May, 1861, prevented by the commander of the blockading force off Charleston from leaving that port with cargo notwithstanding a similar privilege had shortly before been granted to an English vessel. I have directed the Secretary of State to cause the papers in the case to be com- municated to the proper committees.
Applications have been made to me by many free Americans of African descent to favor their emigration, with a view to such colonization as was contemplated in recent acts of Congress. Other parties at home and abroad — some from interested motives, others upon patriotic consid- erations, and still others influenced by philan- thropic sentiments — have suggested similar meas- ures ; while, on the other hand, several of the Spanish-American republics have protested against the sending of such colonies to their respective territories. Under these circum- stances, I have declined to move any such colony
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. i, 1862 55
to any state without first obtaining the consent of its government, with an agreement on its part to receive and protect such emigrants in all the rights of freemen ; and I have at the same time offered to the several states situated within the tropics, or having colonies there, to negotiate with them, subject to the advice and consent- of the Senate, to favor the voluntary emigration of per- sons of that class to their respective territories, upon conditions which shall be equal, just, and humane. Liberia and Hayti are as yet the only countries to which colonists of African descent from here could go with certainty of being re- ceived and adopted as citizens; and I regret to say such persons contemplating colonization do not seem so willing to migrate to those countries as to some others, nor so willing as I think their interest demands. I believe, however, opinion among them in this respect is improving; and that ere long there will be an augmented and considerable migration to both these countries from the United States.
The new commercial treaty between the United States and the Sultan of Turkey has been carried into execution.
A commercial and consular treaty has been ne- gotiated, subject to the Senate's consent, with Liberia ; and a similar negotiation is now pending with the republic of Hayti. A considerable im- provement of the national commerce is expected to result from these measures.
Our relations with Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Prussia, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, the Netherlands, Italy, Rome, and the other European states, remain undis- turbed. Very favorable relations also continue
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to be maintained with Turkey, Morocco, China, and Japan.
During the last year there has not only been no change of our previous relations with the inde- pendent states of our own continent, but more friendly sentiments than have heretofore existed are believed to be ente^ained by these neighbors, whose safety and progress are so intimately con- nected with our own. This statement especially applies to Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Hon- duras, Peru, and Chile.
The commission under the convention with the republic of New Granada closed its session with- out having audited and passed upon all the claims which were submitted to it. A proposition is pending to revive the convention, that it may be able to do more complete justice. The joint com- mission between the United States and the re- public of Costa Rica has completed its labors and submitted its report.
I have favored the project for connecting the United States with Europe by an Atlantic tele- graph, and a similar project to extend the tele- graph from San Francisco, to connect by a Pacific telegraph with the line which is being extended across the Russian empire.
The Territories of the United States, with un- important exceptions, have remained undisturbed by the civil war, and they are exhibiting such evi- dence of prosperity as justifies an expectation that some of them will soon be in a condition to be organized as States and be constitutionally ad- mitted into the Federal Union.
The immense mineral resources of some of those Territories ought to be developed as rapidly as possible. Every step in that direction would
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. i, 1862 57
have a tendency to improve the revenues of the government, and diminish the burdens of the people. It is worthy of your serious considera- tion whether some extraordinary measures to promote that end cannot be adopted. The means which suggests itself as most likely to be effective is a scientific exploration of the mineral regions in those Territories, with a view to the publica- tion of its results at home and in foreign coun- tries— results which cannot fail to be auspicious.
The condition of the finances will claim your most diligent consideration. The vast expendi- tures incident to the military and naval opera- tions required for the suppression of the rebellion have hitherto been met with a promptitude and certainty unusual in similar circumstances, and the public credit has been fully maintained. The continuance of the war, however, and the in- creased disbursements made necessary by the augmented forces now in the field, demand your best reflections as to the best modes of pro- viding the necessary revenue v/ithout injury to business and with the least possible burdens upon labor.
The suspension of specie payments by the banks, soon after the commencement of your last session, made large issues of United States notes unavoidable. In no other way could the pay- ment of the troops, and the satisfaction of other just demands, be so economically or so well pro- vided for. The judicious legislation of Congress, securing the receivability of these notes for loans and internal duties, and making them a legal tender for other debts, has made them a universal currency, and has satisfied, partially at least, and for the time, the long-felt want of a uniform cir-
58 STATE PAPERS
culating medium, saving thereby to the people im- mense sums in discounts and exchanges.
A return to specie payments, however, at the earhest period compatible with due regard to all interests concerned, should ever be kept in view. Fluctuations in the value of currency are always injurious, and to reduce these fluctuations to the lowest possible point will always be a leading purpose in wise legislation. Convertibility — prompt and certain convertibility — into coin is generally acknowledged to be the best and surest safeguard against them ; and it is extremely doubtful whether a circulation of United States notes, payable in coin, and sufficiently large for the wants of the people, can be permanently, use- fully, and safely maintained.
Is there, then, any other mode in which the necessary provision for the public wants can be made, and the great advantages of a safe and uniform currency secured?
I know of none which promises so certain re- sults, and is at the same time so unobjectiona- ble, as the organization of banking associations under a general act of Congress well guarded in its provisions. To such associations the govern- ment might furnish circulating notes, on the se- curity of United States bonds deposited in the treasury. These notes, prepared under the su- pervision of proper officers, being uniform in appearance and security, and convertible always into coin, would at once protect labor against the evils of a vicious currency, and facilitate com- merce by cheap and safe exchanges.
A moderate reservation from the interest on the bonds would compensate the United States for the preparation and distribution of the notes
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. i, 1862 59
and a general supervision of the system, and would lighten the burden of that part of the public debt employed as securities. The public credit, moreover, would be greatly improved and the negotiation of new loans greatly facili- tated by the steady market demand for govern- ment bonds which the adoption of the proposed system would create.
It is an additional recommendation of the measure, of considerable weight in my judg- ment, that it would reconcile, as far as possible, all existing interests, by the opportunity offered to existing institutions to reorganize under the act, substituting only the secured uniform na- tional circulation for the local and various circu- lation, secured and unsecured, now issued by them.
The receipts into the treasury from all sources, including loans and balance from the preceding year, for the fiscal year ending on the 30th June, 1862, were $583,885,247.06; of which sum $49,- 056,397.62 were derived from customs; $1,795,- 331.73 from the direct tax; from public lands, $152,203.77; from miscellaneous sources, $931,- 787.64 ; from loans in all forms, $529,692,460.50. The remainder, $2,257,065.80, was the balance from last year.
The disbursements during the same period were : for congressional, executive, and judicial purposes, $5,939,009.29 ; for foreign intercourse, $1,339,710.35; for miscellaneous expenses, in- cluding the mints, loans, post-office deficiencies, collection of revenue, and other like charges, $14,129,771.50; for expenses under the Interior Department, $3,102,985.52; under the War De- partment, $394,368,407.36; under the Navy De-
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partment, $42,674,569.69; for interest on public debt, $13,190,324.45; and for payment of public debt, including reimbursement of temporary loan, and redemptions, $96,096,922.09 — making an ag- gregate of $570,841,700.25, and leaving a balance in the treasury on the first day of July, 1862, of $13,043,546.81.
It should be observed that the sum of $96,- 096,922.09, expended for reimbursements and re- demption of pubHc debt, being included also in the loans made, may be properly deducted both from receipts and expenditures, leaving the actual receipts for the year, $487,788,324.97; and the expenditures, $474,744,778.16.
Other information on the subject of the finances will be found in the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, to whose statements and views I invite your most candid and considerate atten- tion.
The reports of the Secretaries of War and of the Navy are herewith transmitted. These re- ports, though lengthy, are scarcely more than brief abstracts of the very numerous and ex- tensive transactions and operations conducted through those departments. Nor could I give a summary of them here, upon any principle, which would admit of its being much shorter than the reports themselves. I therefore content my- self with laying the reports before you, and ask- ing your attention to them.
It gives me pleasure to report a decided im- provement in the financial condition of the Post Office Department, as compared with several pre- ceding years. The receipts for the fiscal year 1 86 1 amounted to $8,349,296.40, which embraced the revenue from all the States of the Union for
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. i, 1862 61
three quarters of that year. Notwithstanding the cessation of revenue from the so-called seceded States during the last fiscal year, the increase of the correspondence of the loyal States has been sufficient to produce a revenue during the same year of $8,299,820.90, being only $50,000 less than was derived from all the States of the Union during the previous year. The expendi- tures show a still more favorable result. The amount expended in 1861 was $13,606,759.11. For the last year the amount has been reduced to $11,125,364.13, showing a decrease of about $2,481,000 in the expenditures as compared with the preceding year, and about $3,750,000 as compared with the fiscal year i860. The defi- ciency in the department for the previous year was $4,551,966.98. For the last fiscal year it was reduced to $2,112,814.57. These favorable re- sults are in part owing to the cessation of mail service in the insurrectionary States, and in part to a careful review of all expenditures in that department in the interest of economy. The efficiency of the postal service, it is be- lieved, has also been much improved. The Post- master-General has also opened a correspondence, through the Department of State, with foreign governments, proposing a convention of postal representatives for the purpose of simplifying the rates of foreign postage, and to expedite the foreign mails. This proposition, equally im- portant to our adopted citizens and to the com- mercial interests of this country, has been favor- ably entertained, and agreed to, by all the govern- ments from whom replies have been received.
I ask the attention of Congress to the sugges- tions of the Postmaster-General in his report
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respecting the further legislation required, in his opinion, for the benefit of the postal service.
The Secretary of the Interior reports as follows in regard to the public lands :
The public lands have ceased to be a source of revenue. From the ist July, 1861, to the 30th Septem- ber, 1862, the entire cash receipts from the sale of lands were $137,476.26 — a sum much less than the expenses of our land system during the same period. The home- stead law, which will take effect on the ist of January next, offers such inducements to settlers that sales for cash cannot be expected to an extent sufficient to meet the expenses of the General Land Office, and the cost of surveying and bringing the land into market.
The discrepancy between the sum here stated as arising from the sales of the public lands, and the sum derived from the same source as reported from the Treasury Department, arises, as I understand, from the fact that the periods of time, though apparently, were not really coinci- dent at the beginning point — the Treasury report including a considerable sum now, which had previously been reported from the Interior — sufficiently large to greatly overreach the sum derived from the three months now reported upon by the Interior, and not by the Treasury.
The Indian tribes upon our frontiers have, during the past year, manifested a spirit of insub- ordination, and at several points have engaged in open hostilities against the white settlements in their vicinity. The tribes occupying the Indian country south of Kansas renounced their alle- giance to the United States, and entered into treaties with the insurgents. Those who re- mained loyal to the United States were driven from the country. The chief of the Cherokees
'ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. i, 1862 63
has visited this city for the purpose of restoring the former relations of the tribe with the United States. He alleges that they were constrained by superior force to enter into treaties with the in- surgents, and that the United States neglected to furnish the protection which their treaty stip- ulations required.
In the month of August last the Sioux Indians in Minnesota attacked the settlemxcnts in their vicinity with extreme ferocity, killing indiscrim- inately men, women, and children. This attack was wholly unexpected, and therefore no means of defense had been provided. It is estimated that not less than eight hundred persons were killed by the Indians, and a large amount of property was destroyed. How this outbreak was induced is not definitely known, and suspicions, which may be unjust, nlsed not to be stated. Information was received by the Indian bureau, Irom differ- ent sources, about the time hostilities were com- menced, that a simultaneous attack was to be made upon the white settlements by all the tribes between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. The State of Minnesota has suffered great injury from this Indian war. A large por- tion of her territory has been depopulated, and a severe loss has been sustained by the destruction of property. The people of that State manifest much anxiety for the removal of the tribes beyond the limits of the State as a guarantee against future hostilities. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs will furnish full details. I submit for your especial consideration whether our Indian system shall not be remodeled. Many wise and good men have impressed me with the belief that this can be profitably done.
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I submit a statement of the proceedings of com- missioners, which shows the progress that has been made in the enterprise of constructing the Pacific Railroad. And this suggests the earliest completion of this road, and also the favorable action of Congress upon the projects now pend- ing before them for enlarging the capacities of the great canals in New York and Illinois, as being of vital and rapidly increasing importance to the whole nation, and especially to the vast interior region hereinafter to be noticed at some greater length. I purpose having prepared and laid before you at an early day some interesting and valuable statistical information upon this subject. The military and commercial im- portance of enlarging the Illinois and Michigan canal and improving the Illinois River is pre- sented in the report of Colonel Webster to the Secretary of War, and now transmitted to Con- gress. I respectfully ask attention to it.
To carry out the provisions of the act of Con- gress of the 15th of May last, I have caused the Department of Agriculture of the United States to be organized. The commissioner in- forms me that within the period of a few months this department has established an extensive sys- tem of correspondence and exchanges, both at home and abroad, which promises to effect highly beneficial results in the development of a correct knowledge of recent improvements in agriculture, in the introduction of new products, and in the collection of the agricultural statistics of the dif- ferent States. Also that it will soon be pre- pared to distribute largely seeds, cereals, plants, and cuttings, and has already published and lib- erally diffused much valuable information in an-
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. i, 1862 65
ticipation of a more elaborate report which will in due time be furnished, embracing some valua- ble tests in chemical science now in progress in the laboratory. The creation of this department was for the more immediate benefit of a large class of our most valuable citizens ; and I trust that the liberal basis upon which it has been or- ganized will not only meet your approbation, but that it will realize, at no distant day, all the fond- est anticipations of its most sanguine friends, and become the fruitful source of advantage to all our people.
On the 22d day of September last a proclama- tion was issued by the Executive, a copy of which is herewith submitted. In accordance with the purpose expressed in the second paragraph of that paper, I now respectfully recall your atten- tion to what may be called "compensated emanci- pation."
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 durability. ''One generation passeth away, and another generation Cometh, but the earth abideth forever." It is of the first importance to duly consider and estimate this ever-enduring part. 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.
66 STATE PAPERS
In the inaugural address I briefly pointed out the total inadequacy of disunion as a remedy for the differences between the people of the two sections. 1 did so in language which I cannot improve and which, therefore, I beg to repeat.
One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive-slave clause of the Constitution and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave-trade are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured; and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the sec- tions than before. The foreign slave-trade, now im- perfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived with- out restriction in one section ; while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be sur- rendered at all by the other.
Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face ; and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before? Can ahens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions as to terms of in- tercourse are again upon you.
There is no line, straight or crooked, suitable for a national boundary upon which to divide.
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. i, 1862 67
Trace through, from east to west, upon the Hne 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 surveyors' 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 stipulation would be ever made to take its place.
But there is another difficulty. The great inte- rior region, bounded east by the Alleghanies, north by the British dominions, west by the Rocky j\Iountains, and south by the line along whicli the culture of corn and cotton meets, and which includes part of Virginia, part of Ten- nessee, all of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, and the Territories of Dakota, Ne- braska, and part of Colorado, already has above ten millons of 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 of square miles. Once half as populous as Massachusetts already is, it would have more than seventy-five millions of people. A glance at the map shows that, ter- ritorially speaking, it is the great body of the
68 STATE PAPERS
republic. The other parts are but marginal bor- ders 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 the 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 now 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 out- lets— not, perhaps, by a physical barrier, but by embarrassing and onerous trade regu- lations.
And this is true wherever a dividing or bound- ary line may be fixed. Place it between the now free and slave country, or place it south of Ken- tucky or north of Ohio, and still the truth remains that none south of it can trade to any port or place north of it, and none north of it can trade to any port or place south of it, except upon terms dictated by a government foreign to them. These outlets, east, west, and south, are indispensable to the well-being of the people inhabiting, and to in- habit, this vast interior region. Which of the
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. i, 1862 69
three may be the best, is no proper question. All are better than either ; and all of right belong to that people and to their successors forever. True to themselves, they will not ask where a line of separation shall be, but will vow rather that there shall be no such line. Nor are the marginal regions less interested in these communications to and through them to the great outside world. They, too, and each of them, must have access to this Egypt of the West without paying toll at the crossing of any national boundary.
Our national strife springs not from our per- manent part, not from the land we inhabit, not from our national homestead. There is no pos- sible severing of this but would multiply, and not mitigate, evils among us. In all its adapta- tions and aptitudes it demands union and abhors separation. In fact, it would ere long force re- union, however much of blood and treasure the separation might have cost.
Our strife pertains to ourselves — to the pass- ing generations of men ; and it can without con- vulsion be hushed forever with the passing of one generation.
In this view I recommend the adoption of the following resolution and articles amendatory to the Constitution of the United States :
"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representa- tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of both houses concurring), That the following articles be proposed to the legisla- tures (or conventions) of the several States as amend- ments to the Constitution of the United States, all or any of which articles when ratified by three fourths of the said legislatures (or conventions) to be valid as part or parts of the said Constitution, viz. :
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'Article — .
"Every State wherein slavery now exists which shall abolish the same therein at any time or times before the first day of January in the year of our Lord one thou- sand and nine hundred, shall receive compensation from the United States as follows, to wit :
"The President of the United States shall deliver to every such State bonds of the United States, bearing interest at the rate of per cent, per annum, to an amount equal to the aggregate sum of , for
each slave shown to have been therein by the eighth census of the United States, said bonds to be delivered to such State by instalments, or in one parcel at the completion of the abolishment, accordingly as the same shall have been gradual or at one time within such State ; and interest shall begin to run upon any such bond only from the proper time of its delivery as afore- said. Any State having received bonds as aforesaid, and afterward reintroducing or tolerating slavery therein, shall refund to the United States the bonds so received, or the value thereof, and all interest paid thereon.
"Article — .
"All slaves who shall have enjoyed actual freedom by the chances of the war at any time before the end of the rebellion, shall be forever free ; but all owners of such who shall not have been disloyal shall be compen- sated for them at the same rates as are provided for States adopting abolishment of slavery, but in such way that no slave shall be twice accounted for.
"Article -.
"Congress may appropriate money and otherwise provide for colonizing free colored persons, with their own consent, at any place or places without the United States."
I beg indulgence to discuss these proposed arti- cles at some length. Without slavery the rebel-
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. i, 1862 71
lion could never have existed ; without slavery it could not continue.
Among the friends of the Union there is great diversity of sentiment and of policy in regard to slavery and the African race amongst us. Some would perpetuate slavery; some would abolish it suddenly, and without compensation ; some would abolish it gradually, and with com- pensation ; some would remove the freed people from us, and some would retain them with us ; and there are yet other minor diversities. Be- cause of these diversities we waste much strength in struggles among ourselves. By mutual con- cession we should harmonize and act together. This would be compromise ; but it would be com- promise among the friends, and not with the enemies, of the Union. These articles are in- tended to embody a plan of such mutual con- cessions. If the plan shall be adopted, it is as- sumed that emancipation will follow at least in several of the States.
As to the first article, the main points are: first, the emancipation ; secondly, the length of time for consummating it — thirty-seven years; and, thirdly, the compensation.
The emancipation will be unsatisfactory to the advocates of perpetual slavery ; but the length of time should greatly mitigate their dissatisfac- tion. The time spares both races from the evils of sudden derangement — in fact, from the neces- sity of any derangement; while most of those vv^hose habitual course of thought will be dis- turbed by the mxcasure will have passed away be- fore its consummation. They will never see it. Another class will hail the prospect of emancipa- tion, but will deprecate the length of time. They
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will feel that it gives too little to the now living slaves. But it really gives them much. It saves them from the vagrant destitution which must largely attend immediate emancipation in locali- ties where their numbers are very great; and it gives the inspiring assurance that their posterity shall be free forever. The plan leaves to each State choosing to act under it to abolish slavery now, or at the end of the century, or at any intermediate time, or by degrees extending over the whole or any part of the period ; and it obliges no two States to proceed alike. It also provides for compensation, and generally the mode of mak- ing it. This, it would seem, must further mitigate the dissatisfaction of those who favor perpetual slavery, and especially of those who are to receive the compensation. Doubtless some of those who are to pay, and not to receive, will object. Yet the measure is both just and economical. In a certain sense the liberation of slaves is the de- struction of property — property acquired by de- scent or by purchase, the same as any other prop- erty. It is no less true for having been often said, that the people of the South are not more responsible for the original introduction of this propertty than are the people of the North; and when it is remembered how unhesitatingly we all use cotton and sugar and share the profits of dealing in them, it may not be quite safe to say that the South has been more responsible than the North for its continuance. If, then, for a common object this property is to be sacrificed, is it not just that it be done at a common charge?
And if, with less money, or money more easily paid, we can preserve the benefits of the Union by this means than we can by the war alone.
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. i, 1862 73
is it not also economical to do it? Let us con- sider it, then. Let us ascertain the sum we have expended in the war since compensated emancipa- tion was proposed last March, and consider whether, if that measure had been promptly ac- cepted by even some of the slave States, the same sum would not have done more to close the war than has been otherwise done. If so, the measure would save money, and in that view would be a prudent and economical measure. Certainly it is not so easy to pay something as it is to pay nothing ; but it is easier to pay a large sum than it is to pay a larger one. And it is easier to pay any sum when we are able, than it is to pay it before we are able. The war requires large sums, and requires them at once. The aggre- gate sum necessary for compensated emancipa- tion of course would be large. But it would re- quire no ready cash, nor the bonds even, any faster than the emancipation progresses. This might not, and probably would not, close before the end of the thirty-seven years. At that time we shall probably have 100,000,000 of people to share the burden, instead of 31,000,000 as now. And not only so, but the increase of our popu- lation may be expected to continue for a long time after that period, as rapidly as before, be- cause our territory will not have become full. I do not state this inconsiderately. At the same ratio of increase which we have maintained, on an average, from our first national census in 1790 until that of i860, we should in 1900 have a population of 103,208,415. And why may we not continue that ratio far beyond that period? Our abundant room — our broad national home- stead— is our ample resource. Were our terri-
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tory as limited as are the British Isles, very cer- tainly our population could not expand as stated. Instead of receiving the foreign-born as now, we should be compelled to send part of the native- born away. But such is not our condition. We have 2,963,000 square miles. Europe has 3,800,- 000, with a population averaging 73 1-3 persons to the square mile. Why m.ay not our country, at the same time, average as many? Is it less fertile? Has it more waste surface, by moun- tains, rivers, lakes, deserts, or other causes? Is it inferior to Europe in any natural advantage ? If, then, we are at some time to be as populous as Europe, how soon? As to when this may be, we can judge by the past and the present ; as to when it will be, if ever, depends much on whether we maintain the Union. Several of our States are already above the average of Europe — 73 1-3 to the square mile. Massachusetts has 157; Rhode Island, 133; Connecticut, 99; New York and New Jersey, each 80. Also two other great States, Pennsylvania and Ohio, are not far below, the former having 63 and the latter 59. The States already above the European average, except New York, have increased in as rapid a ratio since passing that point as ever before, while no one of them is equal to some other parts of our country in natural capacity for sustaining a dense population.
Taking the nation in the aggregate, we find its population and ratio of increase for the sev- eral decennial periods to be as follows :
1790 3,929,827
1800 5'305.937 3502 per cent, ratio of increase,
1810 7,239.814 36.45
1820 9,638,131 33-13 " " "
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. i, 1862 75
1830 12,866,020 33.49 per cent, ratio of increase.
1840 17,069.453 32.67
1850 23,191,876 35-87 "
i860 31,443,790 35.58
This shows an average decennial increase of 34.60 per cent, in population through the seventy years from our first to our last census yet taken. It is seen that the ratio of increase at no one of these seven periods is either two per cent, below or two per cent, above the average, thus showing how inflexible, and consequently how re- liable, the law of increase in our case is. Assum- ing that it will continue, gives the following re- sults :
1870 42,323,341
1880 56,967,216
1890 76.677,872
1900 103,208,415
1910 138,918,526
1920 186.984,335
1930 251,680,914
These figures show that our country may be as populous as Europe now is at some point be- tween 1920 and 1930 — say about 1925 — our terri- tory, at 73 1-3 persons to the square mile, being of capacity to contain 217,186,000.
And we will reach this, too, if we do not our- selves relinquish the chance by the folly and evils of disunion, or by long and exhausting war springing from the only great element of national discord among us. While it cannot be foreseen exactly how much one huge example of seces- sion, breeding lesser ones indefinitely, would re- tard population, civilization, and prosperity, no one can doubt that the extent of it would be very great and injurious.
y6 STATE PAPERS
The proposed emancipation would shorten the war, perpetuate peace, insure this increase of pop- ulation, and proportionately the wealth of the country. With these, we should pay all the emancipation would cost, together with our other debt, easier than we should pay our other debt without it. If we had allowed our old national debt to run at six per cent, per annum, simple interest, from the end of our Revolutionary strug- gle until to-day, without paying anything on either principle or interest, each man of us would owe less upon that debt now than each man owed upon it then ; and this because our increase of men, through the whole period, has been greater than six per cent. — has run faster than the interest upon the debt. Thus, time alone relieves a debtor nation, so long as its popu- lation increases faster than unpaid interest ac- cumulates on its debt.
This fact would be no excuse for delaying pay- ment of what is justly due ; but it shows the great importance of time in this connection — the great advantage of a policy by which we shall not have to pay, until we number a hundred mil- lions, what by a different policy we would have to pay now, when we number but thirty-one mil- lions. In a word, it shows that a dollar will be much harder to pay for the war than will be a dollar for emancipation on the pro- posed plan. And then the latter will cost no blood, no precious life. It will be a saving of both.
As to the second article, I think it would be impracticable to return to bondage the class of persons therein contemplated. Some of them doubtless, in the property sense, belong to loyal
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. i, 1862 77
owners ; and hence provision is made in this article for compensating such.
The third article relates to the future of the freed people. It does not oblige, but merely authorizes, Congress to aid in colonizing such as may consent. This ought not to be regarded as objectionable, on the one hand or on the other, insomuch as it comes to nothing unless by the mutual consent of the people to be deported, and the American voters through their repre- sentatives in Congress.
I cannot make it better known than it already is, that I strongly favor colonization. And yet I wish to say there is an objection urged against free colored persons remaining in the country which is largely imaginary, if not sometimes malicious.
It is insisted that their presence would injure and displace white labor and white laborers. If there ever could be a proper time for mere catch arguments, that time surely is not now. In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and in eternity. Is it true, then, that colored people can displace any more white labor by being free than by remaining slaves? If they stay in their old places, they jostle no white laborers ; if they leave their old places, they leave them open to white laborers. Logi- cally, there is neither more nor less of it. Eman- cipation, even without deportation, would prob- ably enhance the wages of white labor, and very surely would not reduce them. Thus, the cus- tomary amount of labor Avould still have to be performed ; the freed people would surely not do more than their old proportion of it, and very
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probably for a time would do less, leaving an increased part to white laborers, bringing their labor into greater demand, and consequently en- hancing the wages of it. With deportation, even to a limited extent, enhanced wages to white labor is mathematically certain. Labor is like any other commodity in the market — increase the demand for it, and you increase the price of it. Reduce the supply of black labor by coloniz- ing the black laborer out of the country, and by precisely so much you increase the demand for, and wages of, white labor.
But it is dreaded that the freed people will swarm forth and cover the whole land ? Are they not already in the land? Will liberation make them any more numerous? Equally distributed among the whites of the whole country, and there would be but one colored to seven whites. Could the one in any way greatly disturb the seven? There are many communities now hav- ing more than one free colored person to seven whites, and this without any apparent conscious- ness of evil from it. The District of Columbia, and the States of Maryland and Delaware, are all in this condition. The District has more than one free colored to six whites ; and yet in its frequent petitions to Congress I believe it has never presented the presence of free colored per- sons as one of its grievances. But why should emancipation south send the free people north? People of any color seldom run unless there be something to run from. Heretofore colored peo- ple, to some extent, have fled north from bondage ; and now, perhaps, from both bondage and desti- tution. But if gradual emancipation and deporta- tion be adopted, they will have neither to flee
i
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. i, 1862
79
from. Their old masters will give them wa^res at least until new laborers can be procured ; and the freedmen, in turn, will gladly give their labor for the wages till new homes can be found for them in congenial climes and with people of their own blood and race. This proposition can be trusted on the mutual interests involved. And, in any event, cannot the North decide for itself whether to receive them?
Again, as practice proves more than theory, in any case, has there been any irruption of col- ored people northward because of the abolish- ment of slavery in this District last spring?
What I have said of the proportion of free col- ored persons to the whites in the District is from the census of i860, having no reference to per- sons called contrabands, nor to those made free by the act of Congress abolishing slavery here.
The plan consisting of these articles is recom- mended, not but that a restoration of the national authority would be accepted without its adoption.
Nor will the war, nor proceedings under the proclamation of September 22, 1862, be stayed because of the recommendation of this plan. Its timely adoption, I doubt not, would bring restora- tion, and thereby stay both.
And, notwithstanding this plan, the recom- mendation that Congress provide by law for compensating any State which may adopt eman- cipation before this plan shall have been acted upon, is hereby earnestly renewed. Such would be only an advance part of the plan, and the same arguments apply to both.
This plan is recommended as a means, not in exclusion of, but additional to, all others for restoring and preserving the national authority
So STATE PAPERS
throughout the Union. The subject is presented exclusively in its economical aspect. The plan would, I am confident, secure peace more speed- ily, and maintain it more permanently, than can be done by force alone; while all it would cost, considering amounts, and manner of payment, and times of payment, would be easier paid than will be the additional cost of the war if we rely solely upon force. It is much — very much — that it would cost no blood at all.
The plan is proposed as permanent constitu- tional lav/. It cannot become such without the concurrence of, first, two thirds of Congress and, afterward, three fourths of the States. The requisite three fourths of the States will necessarily include seven of the slave States. Their concurrence, if obtained, will give assur- ance of their severally adopting emancipation at no very distant day upon the new constitutional terms. This assurance would end the struggle now, and save the Union forever.
I do not forget the gravity which should char- acterize 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.
Is it doubted, then, that the plan I propose, if adopted, would shorten the war, and thus lessen its expenditure of money and of blood? Is it doubted that it would restore the national au- thority and national prosperity, and perpetuate
ANNUAL MESSAGE, DEC. i, 1862 81
both indefinitely? Is it doubted that we here — Congress and Executive — can secure its adop- tion? Will not the good people respond to a united and earnest appeal from us? Can we, can they, by any other means so certainly or so speedily assure these vital objects? We can suc- ceed only by concert. It is not *'Can any of us imagine better?" but, "Can we all do better?" Object whatsoever is possible, still the question occurs, ''Can we do better?" The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy pres- ent. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, 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 cf this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or an- other 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.
Abraham Lincoln.
^2 STATE PAPERS
Annual Message to Congress.
December 8, 1863.
F ell oiv- citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives: Another year of health, and of