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some of them I couldn't save-there are some cases where the law must be executed.

"There was that man

who was sentenced for

piracy and slave-trading on the high seas. That was a case where there must be an example, and you don't know how they followed and pressed to get him pardoned, or his sentence commuted; but there was no use of talking. It had to be done; I could not help the poor

man.

who was caught

"And then there was that spying and recruiting within Pope's lines in Missouri. That was another case. They besieged me day and

night but I couldn't give way.

"We had come to a point where something must be done that would put a stop to such work.

"And then there was the case of Beal on the lakes. That was a case where there had to be an example. They tried me every way. They wouldn't give up; but I had to stand firm on that, and I even had turned away his poor sister when she came and begged for his life, and let him be executed, and he was executed, and I can't get the distress out of my mind."

As the kindly man uttered these words the tears ran down his cheeks, and the eyes of the men surrounding him moistened in sympathy. There was a profound silence in which they rose to depart. Three weeks after, the President was killed.

How Lincoln Told a Secret.

When the Sherman expedition which captured Port Royal went out, there was great curiosity to know where it had gone. A person visiting President Lincoln at his official residence importuned him to disclose the destination.

[graphic]

"Will you keep it entirely secret" asked the President.

"Oh yes, upon my honor."

"Well," said the President, "I will tell you." Assuming an air of great mystery, and drawing the man close to him, he kept him a moment awaiting the revela

tion with an open mouth and in great anxiety, and then said in a loud whisper, which was heard all over the room, The expedition has gone to—sea,"

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Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Passes to Richmond..

A gentleman called upon President Lincoln before the fall of Richmond and solicited a pass for that place. "I should be very happy to oblige you," said the President, "if my passes were respected; but the fact is, I have, within the past two years given passes to two hundred and fifty thousand men to go to Richmond and not one has got there yet.

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Hon. Leonard Swett's Reminiscences.

"I saw him, says the late Mr. Sweet, who was a most intimate friend of Lincoln, "early one morning, when the President, alluding to the proposed Emancipation Proclamation, invited me to sit down, as he wished to confcr with me on the subject. The conference lasted until the time came for the Cabinet Council, and during the whole time Lincoln did all the talking He did not really want my advice, he wanted simply to go over the ground with

me.

"During the conference the President read a very able letter from Robert Dale Owen, urging reasons why the war could never be gone through successfully without the Emancipation Proclamation. As Lincoln read it he re

marked, 'this is a very able paper,' at the same time stating that he had prepared a paper on the same subJect but that Mr. Owen's paper was much the abler of the two.

The President then offered to read letters of another kind,-letters complaining of his administration, piling upon him the most frightful abuse for a do nothing in the Presidential chair. The reading of letters of this class occupied an hour, He also read a letter from the Frenchman Gasparin, who advised him to do nothing that was revolutionary, and urging the claims of legitimacy. He argued that the South were revolutionists, and asked whether a proclamation freeing the slaves might not render the Northerners revolutionists themselves.

Lincoln then reviewed the three kinds of letters, and also gave his own views as to the probable results of freeing the negroes, his great fear being that they might, thus freed, become an element of weakness to their liberators.

"Before the interview was ended, I, pondering upon what Mr. Lincoln had said about having written something upon the subject of emancipation, made a guess that he had in the drawer before him the proclamation ready written, and I asked the President to let me see what he had prepared on the subject. Lincoln asked me not to press the request, and I abstained from doing so, but three weeks afterward, when the proclamation had been issued, the President acknowledged to me that my guess had been a correct one, and that the document was, at the time of the interview, lying in the very spot I had mentioned.

As soon as Lincoln saw that the negro slave could become a soldier he saw that he had the material out of which the rebellion could be crushed, and it is my belief that from this time forward Lincoln had a clear sight of the victory that stood at the end of the war.

Speaking of Lincoln's habits, the Hon. Leonard Swett

says:

"The martyr-President was used to work all his life, but never to its dissipations.

With him morning meant he had finished breakfast What tore his heart most

6 o'clock a. m., and, as a rule, and was at work at 7 o'olock. of all during the war, was an approval of the death penalty. He had a horror of blood, and although he knew that under certain circumstances he could not avoid signing the death-warrant for desertion, it always caused him. infinite pain to do so.

One morning Mr. Swett found him sitting in the "east room" before a pile of papers. They sat together, chatted and told stories. It was a Thursday, and Friday was always the day upon which deserters were shot. Suddenly Lincoln arose and said:

"Swett, go out of here; to-morrow is butcher's day, and I've got to go through these papers not to see if they are regular, but if I can't find something by which I can let them off."

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Lincoln and the Colored People of Richmond. G. F. Shepley gives the following interesting reminiscence:

After Mr. Lincoln's interview with Judge Campbell,

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