severe test, and a presidential election occurring in regular course during the rebellion, added not a little to the strain. "If the loyal people united were put to the utmost of their strength by the rebellion, must they not fail when divided and partially paralyzed by a political war among themselves? But the election was a necessity. We cannot have free government without elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forego or postpone a national election, it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us. * * But the election, along with its incidental and undesirable strife, has done good too. It has demonstrated that a people's government can sustain a national election in the midst of a great civil war. Until now, it has not been known to the world that this was a possibility."

Another fact vital to Mr. Lincoln's policy was proved by the election. The North was far from exhaustion in "the most important branch of national resources-that of living men."

"While it is melancholy to reflect," the President said in his December address to Congress, "that the war had filled so many graves, and carried mourning to so many hearts, it is some relief to know that compared with the surviving, the fallen have been so few. While corps, and divisions, and brigades, and regiments have formed, and fought, and dwindled, and gone out of existence, a great majority of the men who composed them are still living. The same is true of the naval service. The election returns prove this. So many voters could not else be found. The States regularly holding elections, both now and four years ago cast 3,982,011 votes now, against 3,870,222 cast then; showing an aggregate now of 3,982,011. To this is to be added 33,762 cast now in the new States of Kansas and Nevada, which States did not vote in 1860; thus swelling the aggregate to 4,015,773, and the net increase during the three years and a half of war, to 145,551. . . . To this again should be added the number of all soldiers in the field from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey,

Delaware, Indiana, Illinois, and California, who by the laws of those States could not vote away from their homes, and which number cannot be less than 90,000. Nor yet is this all. The number in organized Territories is triple now what it was four years ago, while thousands, white and black, join us as the national arms press back the insurgent lines. So much is shown, affirmatively and negatively by the election. "It is not material to inquire how the increase has been produced, or to show that it would have been greater but for the war, which is probably true. The important fact remains demonstrated that we have more men now than we had when the war began; that we are not exhausted, nor in process of exhaustion; that we are gaining strength, and may, if need be, maintain the contest indefinitely. This as to men. Material resources are now more complete and abundant than ever."

Approved by the people, convinced that the institutions of the country had successfully resisted the worst strain which could be given them, inexhaustible resources at his command, Lincoln took up his task. To put an end to the armed resistance to the union was the first duty. This had got to be done by war not by negotiation. He put it plainly to Congress in December:

"On careful consideration of all the evidence accessible, it seems to me that no attempt at negotiation with the insurgent leader could result in any good. He would accept nothing short of severance of the Union-precisely what we will not and cannot give. His declarations to this effect are explicit and oft repeated. He does not attempt to deceive us. He affords us no excuse to deceive ourselves. He cannot voluntarily re-accept the Union; we cannot voluntarily yield it. Between him and us the issue is distinct, simple, and inflexible. It is an issue which can only be tried by war, and decided by victory. If we yield, we are beaten; if the Southern people fail him, he is beaten. Either way it would be the victory and defeat following war."

By this time the boundaries of the Confederacy had been so narrowed, their territory so divided by invading armies that it seemed to all observers that they must soon yield. The Mississippi was open and the territory on each side practically under federal control. Louisiana was under military government. Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee were so cleared of troops that they had produced fair crops. Three ports, Norfolk, Fernandina and Pensacola, were opened on December 1 to commercial intercourse excepting of course band of war." Grant held Lee and the bulk of the Confederate army at Richmond. Sherman who had taken Atlanta in August had marched three hundred miles directly through the Confederate country destroying everything as he went. Nobody knew just then where he would come out but it was certain he could be counted on to hold the Confederate force under Johnston in check. Besides the armies under Lee and Johnston there were other smaller forces holding positions, but it was evident that if Lee and Johnston were defeated, the surrender of these smaller forces was inevitable. The Confederate navy, too, had been destroyed by this time. The task seemed short, yet such was the courage, the resourcefulness, the audacity in attack and defense which the Confederates had shown from the beginning of the war that Mr. Lincoln was the last man in the North to relax efforts. Although he had an army of nearly a million men enrolled at the time of his re-election, on December 19, he called for 300,000 volunteers to serve for one, two or three years.

persons, things and information contra

A week after this call Sherman came out and presented the country Savannah as a Christmas gift. The letter Lincoln wrote him, is worthy to be placed beside the one he wrote to Grant after Vicksburg: