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Why? Why this deliberate 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 government 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 necessity, 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 government'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 deserted his flag.

Great honor is due to those officers who remained true, despite the example of their treacherous 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 have successfully resisted the traitorous efforts of those whose commands but an hour before they obeyed as absolute law. This is the patriotic instinct of plain people. They understand, without an argument, that the destroying the government which was made by Washington means no good to them. Our popular government has often been called an ex

periment. 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 constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets; that there can be no successful appeal except to ballots themselves at succeeding elections. Such will be a great lesson of peace, teaching men that what they can not take by an election, neither can they take it by a war; teaching all the folly of being 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 will probably have no different understanding of the powers and duties of the Federal government relatively to the rights of the states and the people, 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 administered by the men who made it.

Loyal citizens every-where have the right to claim this of their government, and the government has no

right to withhold or neglect it. It is not perceived 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 republican 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 Executive 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 gov

ernment."

No compromise 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.

As a private citizen, the Executive could not have consented that these institutions shall perish; much less could he in betrayal of so vast and so sacred a trust as these free people had 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 action, 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. July 4, 1861.

MR. LINCOLN'S MEMORANDUM OF MILITARY PROGRAMME.

July 23, 1861.

1. Let the plan for making the blockade effective be pushed forward with all possible dispatch.

2. Let the volunteer forces at Fort Monroe and vicinity, under General Butler, be constantly drilled, disciplined, and instructed without more for the present.

3. Let Baltimore be held as now, with a gentle but firm and certain hand.

4. Let the force now under Patterson or Banks be strengthened and made secure in its position.

5. Let the forces in western Virginia act till further orders according to instructions or orders from General McClellan.

6. General Fremont push forward his organization and operations in the West as rapidly as possible, giving rather special attention to Missouri.

7. Let the forces late before Manassas, except the three months' men, be organized as rapidly as possible in their camps, here and about Arlington.

8. Let the three months' forces who decline to enter the longer service be discharged as rapidly as circumstances will permit.

9. Let the new volunteer forces be brought forward as fast as possible; and especially into the camps on the two sides of the river here.

July 27, 1861.

When the foregoing shall have been substantially attended to

1. Let Manassas Junction (or some point on one or the other of the railroads nearest it) and Strasburg be seized, and permanently held, with an open line from Washington to Manassas, and an open line from Harper's Ferry to Strasburg, the military men to find the way of doing these.

2. This done, a joint movement from Cairo on Memphis, and from Cincinnati on east Tennessee.

War Department, Washington, Aug. 15, 1861. Major-General Fremont, St. Louis:-Been answering your messages ever since day before yesterday. Do you receive the answers? The War Department has notified all the governors you designated to forward all available force, and so telegraphed you. Have you received these messages? Answer immediately.

A. LINCOLN.

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