emetics during temporary illness as to persist in feeding upon them during the remainder of his healthful life.

In giving the resolutions the earnest consideration which you request of me, I cannot overlook the fact that the meeting speak as "Democrats.” Nor can I with full respect for their known intelligence, and the fairly presumed deliberation with which they prepared these resolutions, be permitted to suppose that this occurs by accident, or in any way other than that they prefer to designate themselves Democrats rather than American citizens. In this time of national peril I would have preferred to meet you on a level one step higher than any party platform, because I am sure that from such more elevated position we could do better battle for the country we all love than we possibly can from those lower ones where, from the force of habit, the prejudices of the past, and selfish hopes of the future, we are sure to expend much of our ingenuity and strength in finding fault with, and aiming blows at, each other. But, since you have denied me this, I will yet be thankful, for the country's sake, that not all Democrats have done so.

[Letter to James C. Conkling.]

August 16, 1863. There are those who are dissatisfied

with me. To such I would say, You desire peace,

and you blame me that we do not have it. But how can we obtain it? There are but three conceivable ways. First, to suppress the rebellion by force of arms. This I am trying to do. Are you for it? If you are so, we are agreed. If you are not for it, a second way is to give up the Union. I am against this. If you are, you should say so plainly. If you are not for force, nor yet for dissolution, there only remains some imaginary compromise. I do not believe that any compromise embracing the maintenance of the Union is now possible. All that I learn leads to a directly opposite belief. The strength of the rebellion is its military, its army. The army dominate all the country, and all the people within its range. Any offer of terms made by any man or men within that range in opposition to that army is simply nothing for the present; because such man or men have no power whatever to enforce their side of a compromise, if one were made with them.

You dislike the Emancipation Proclamation, and perhaps would have it retracted. You say it is unconstitutional. I think differently. I think the Constitution invests its Commander-in-chief with the law of war in the time of war. The most that can be said, if so much, is that slaves are property. Is there, has there ever been, any question that by the law of war property, both of enemies and

friends, may be taken when needed? And is it not needed whenever taking it helps us and hurts the enemy! Armies the world over destroy enemy's property when they cannot use it; and even destroy their own to keep it from the enemy. Civilized belligerents do all in their power to help themselves and hurt the enemy, except a few things regarded as barbarous or cruel. Among the exceptions are the massacre of vanquished foes and non-combatants, male and female.

But the Proclamation, as law, is valid, or is not valid. If it is valid, it cannot be retracted any more than the dead can be brought to life. Some of you profess to think that its retraction would operate favorably for the Union. Why better

after the retraction than before the issue? There was more than a year and a half of trial to suppress the rebellion before the Proclamation was issued, the last one hundred days of which passed under an explicit notice that it was coming, unless averted by those in revolt returning to their allegiance. The war has certainly progressed as favorably for us since the issue of the Proclamation as before.

You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem to be willing to fight for you. But no matter. Fight you then exclusively to save the Union. I issued the Proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving the Union.

Whenever we shall have conquered all resistance to the Union, if I shall urge you to continue fighting, it will be an apt time then for you to declare that you will not fight to free negroes.

I thought that in your struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the negroes should cease helping the enemy, to that extent it weakened the enemy in his resistance to you. Do you think differently? I thought that whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise to you? But negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do anything for us if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us they must be prompted by the strongest motive, even the promise of their freedom. And the promise, being made, must be kept.

The signs look better. The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea. Thanks to the great North-west for it. Nor yet wholly to them. Three hundred miles up they met New England, Empire, Keystone, and Jersey hewing their way right and left. The sunny South, too, in more colors than one, also lent a hand. On the spot their part of the history was jotted down in black and white. The job was a great national one, and let none be banned who bore an honorable part in it. And while those who have cleared the great

river may well be proud, even that is not all. It is hard to say that anything has been more bravely or better done than at Antietam, Murfreesboro, Gettysburg, and on many fields of lesser note.

Nor must Uncle Sam's web-foot be forgotten. At all the waters' margins they have been present, not only on the deep sea, the broad bay, and the rapid river, but also up the narrow, muddy bayou, and wherever the ground was a little damp, they have been and made their tracks.

Thanks to all. For the great Republic, for the principles by which it lives and keeps alive for man's vast future, thanks to all.

Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will soon come, and come to stay, and so come as to be worth keeping in all future time. It will then have been proved that among freemen there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case, and pay the cost.

And then there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation, while I fear there will be some white men unable to forget that, with malignant heart and deceitful speech, they have striven to hinder it.

Still, let us not be over sanguine of a speedy