had previously attempted to show,) then it seems to follow that an attempt to do so would be ipso facto an expulsim of such State from the Union; being treated as an alien and an enemy, she would be compelled to act accordingly. And if Congress shall break up the present Union by unconstitutionally putting strife and enmity between different sections of the country, instead of the domestic tranquility which the Constitution was meant to insure, will not all the States be absolved from their Federal obligations? Is any portion of the people bound to contribute their money or their blood to carry on a contest like that?"

President Buchanan, in his Message of December 3, 1860,

says:

"The question fairly stated is: Has the Constitution delegated to Congress the right to coerce a State into submission, which is attempting to withdraw, or has actually withdrawn from the Confederacy? If answered in the affirmative it must be upon the principle that power has been conferred upon Congress to declare or to make war upon a State. After much serious reflection, I have arrived at the conclusion that no such power has been delegated to Congress or to any other department of the Federal Government. Without descending to particulars, it may be safely asserted that the power to make war against a State is at variance with the whole spirit of the Constitution. * * Congress possesses many means of preserving it, (the Union,) by conciliation, but the sword was not placed in their hands to preserve it by force."

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It was resolved by Congress in 1861, by a nearly unanimous vote; "That neither the Federal Government nor the people, or the Governments of the non-slaveholding States have the right to legislate upon or interfere with slavery in any of the slaveholding States of the Union."

On the 14th of January, 1861, Mr. Corwin, Chairman of a Select Committee of thirty-three, reported a series of propositions to the House of Representatives, the first of which was adopted in the form of a Joint Resolution by a vote of 137 to 53, in the House, and was subsequently passed by the Senate, contained the following:

Resolved, That it is the duty of the Federal Government to enforce the Federal laws, protect the Federal property and preserve the Union of these States.

morally. In this power of impressing himself upon the people, he contrasts with many other distinguished men in our history.

A few quotations from Webster live in the every day language of the people. Little of Clay survives; not much of Calhoun, and who can quote, off hand, two sentences from Douglas? But you hear Lincoln's words, not only in every cabin and caucus, but at every school house, high school and college, and by every farmer, as he tells you story after story of Lincoln's, and all to the point, hitting the nail on the head every time, and driving home the argument. Mr. Lincoln was not a scholar, but where is there a speech more exhaustive in argument than his Cooper Institute speech? Where anything more full of pathos than his speech to his neighbors at Springfield, when he bade them farewell, on starting for the Capital? Where anything more eloquent than his appeal for Peace and Union, in his first Inaugural Address, or than his defence of the Declaration of Independence in the Douglas debates? Where is the equal of his speech at Gettysburg? Where is a more conclusive argument than in his letter to the Albany meeting, on arrests? What is better than his letter to the Illinois State Convention; and that to Hodges of Kentucky, in explanation of his antislavery policy? Where is there any thing equal in simple grandeur of thought, and sentiment, to his last Inaugural?

From all of these, and many others, from his every day talks, are extracts on the tongues of the people, as familiar, and nearly as much reverenced, as texts from the Bible; and these are shaping the national character.

"Though dead, he yet speaketh."

As a public speaker, if excellence is measured by effect, he had no superior. His manner was generally earnest, often playful; sometimes, but this was rare, he was vehement and impassioned. There have been a few instances, at the bar and on the stump, when, wrought up to indignation by some great personal wrong, or an aggravated case of fraud, or injustice, or when speaking of the fearful wrongs and injustice

of slavery, he has spoken in a strain of impassioned vehemence which carried everything before him.

Generally, he addressed the reason and judgment, and the effect was lasting. He spoke extemporaneously, but with more or less preparation. He had the faculty of repeating, without reading it, a discourse or speech which he had prepared and written out. His great speech, on opening the campaign in Illinois, June, 1858, was carefully written out, but so naturally spoken that few suspected that it was not extemporaneous. In his style, manner of presenting facts, and way of putting things to the people, he was more like Franklin than any other American. His illustrations, by anecdote and story, were not unlike the author of Poor Richard.

Another source of his great intellectual power, was the thorough, exhaustive investigation he gave to every subject. Take, for illustration, his Cooper Institute speech. Hundreds of able and intelligent men have spoken on the same subject, as was treated by him in that speech, yet, they will all be forgotten and his will survive, because his is absolutely perfect for the purpose for which it was designed. Nothing can be added to it.

Mr. Lincoln, however, required time, thoroughly to investigate, before he came to his conclusions, and the movements of his mind were not rapid, but when he reached his conclusions he believed in them, and adhered to them with great firmness and tenacity. When called upon to decide quickly upon a new subject, or a new point, he often erred, and was ever ready to change when satisfied he was wrong.

It was the union, in Mr. Lincoln, of the capacity clearly to see the truth, and an innate love of truth, and justice, and right in his heart, that constituted his character, and made him so great. He never demoralized his intellectual or moral nature, either by doing wrong, that good might come, or by advocating error, because it was popular. Although, as a statesman, eminently practical, and looking to the possible good of to-day, he ever kept in mind the absolute truth, and absolute right towards which he always

Mr. Lincoln was an unselfish man. He never sought his own advancement at the expense of others. He was a just man. He never tried to pull others down, that he might rise. He disarmed rivalry and envy by his rare generosity. He was eminently a tender-hearted, kind and humane man. These traits were illustrated all through his life. He loved to pardon; he was averse to punish. It was difficult for him to deny the request of a child, a woman, or of any who were weak and suffering. Pages of incidents might be quoted, showing his ever thoughtful kindness, gratitude, and appreciation of the soldiers. The following letter is selected from many on this subject:

"EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, November 21, 1864. "DEAR MADAM: I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

"Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

"ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

"To Mrs. BIXBY, Boston, Massachusetts."

One summer's day, in walking along the shaded path which leads from the White House to the War Department, I saw the tall form of the President seated on the grass under a tree, with a wounded soldier sitting by his side. He had a bundle of papers in his hand. The soldier had met him in the path, and recognizing him, had asked his aid. Mr. Lincoln sat down upon the grass, investigated the case, and sent the soldier away rejoicing.

His charity, in the best sense of that word, was pervading. When others railed, he railed not again. No bitter words, no denunciation can be found in his writings or speeches.

Mr. Seward writes to Mr. Adams, July 5th, 1862: *

"It is a satisfaction to know that a copy of my dispatch 260, has been received and read to Earl Russell. The subject it presents is one of momentous import. It seems as if the extreme advocates of African slavery and its most vehement opponents were acting in concert together to precipitate a servile war-the former by making the most desperate attempts to overthrow the Federal Union; the latter by demanding an edict of universal emancipation as a lawful and necessary, if not, as they say, the only legitimate way of saving the Union."

Mr. Seward, writing to Mr. Adams on a previous occasion, says:

"The rights of the States, and the condition of every human being in them, will remain precisely the same, whether the revolution shall succeed or whether it shall fail. In one case the States would be federally connected with the new Confederacy; in the other, they would, as now, be members of the United States, but their constitutions and laws, customs, habits and institutions in either case will remain the same."

The People's Convention, which met in Fanueil Hall, Boston, in October, 1862, and which contained among its members, Joel Parker, Professor of Law at Cambridge, and B. F. Thomas, an ex-judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, passed the following resolutions:

"Resolved, That we deeply regret that the President of the United States at this time, forgetful of his obligations to the whole country as the constitutional head of the Government, and yielding to unwise counsels, should have declared in his Proclamation of September 22d, 1862, his determination to adopt hereafter, in the prosecution of our deplorable civil war, the policy of a party which the House of Representatives, by the resolutions of February 11th, 1861, unanimously declared to be too insignificant in numbers and influence to excite the serious attention or alarm of any portion of the people of the Republic.

"Resolved, That in the name of civilized humanity, we respectfully but earnestly protest against the Emancipation Proclamation of the freedmen and their rebel masters, towards each other since the day of the emancipation of the former; and which has been guilty of the most violence, the greater number of outrages, and "horrors?” Let Memphis and New Orleans

answer.

*Diplomatic Correspondence, Part 1, p. 124. By the time this dispatch reached Mr. Adams, Mr. Lincoln had written the Proclamation of Emancipation.