To HON. ANDREW JOHNSON.

War Department, July 11, 1862.

My Dear Sir:-Yours of yesterday is received. Dɔ you not, my good friend, perceive that what you ask is simply to put you in command of the West? I do not suppose you desire this. You only wish to control in your own localities; but this you must know may derange all other posts.

Can you not, and will you not have a full conference with General Halleck? Telegraph him and meet him at such place as you and he can agree upon.

I telegraph him to meet you and confer fully with A. LINCOLN.

you.

ADDRESS TO THE SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES OF THE BORDER STATES.

July, 1862. Gentlemen:-After the adjournment of Congress, now near, I shall have no opportunity of seeing you for several months. Believing that you of the border states hold more power for good than any other equal number of members, I feel it a duty which I can not justifiably waive to make this appeal to you.

I intend no reproach or complaint when I assure you that, in my opinion, if you all had voted for the resolution in the gradual emancipation message of last March, the war would now be substantially ended.

And the plan therein proposed is yet one of the most potent and swift means of ending it. Let the states. which are in rebellion see definitely and certainly that in no event will the states you represent ever join

their proposed confederacy, and they can not much longer maintain the contest. But you can not divest them of their hope to ultimately have you with them, as long as you show a determination to perpetuate the institution within your own states; beat them at election as you have overwhelmingly done and nothing daunted, they still claim you as their own. You and I know what the lever of their power is. Break that lever before their faces, and they can shake you no more forever. Most of you have treated me with kindness and consideration; and I trust you will not now think I improperly touch what is exclusively your own, when for the sake of the whole country, I ask, can you, for your states, do better than to take the course I urge? Discarding punctilio and maxims adapted to more manageable times, and looking only to the unprecedently stern facts of our case, can you do better in any possible event? You prefer that the constitutional relation of the states to the nation shall be practically restored without disturbance of the institution; and if this were done, my whole duty, in this respect, under the constitution and my oath of office, would be performed. But it is not done, and we are trying to accomplish it by war.

The incidents of the war can not be avoided. If the war continues long, as it must if the object be not sooner attained, the institution in your states, will be extinguished by mere friction and abrasion-by the mere incidents of the war. It will be gone, and you will have nothing valuable in lieu of it. Much of its value is gone already. How much better for you and your people, to take the step which at once shortens

the war, and secures substantial compensation for that which is sure to be wholly lost in any other event. How much better to thus save the money which else. we sink forever in the war. How much better to do it while we can, lest the war ere long render us-pocuniarily unable to do it. How much better for you, as seller, and the nation, as buyer, to sell out and buy out, that without which the war never could have been, than to sink both the thing to be sold and the price of it in cutting one another's throats. I do not speak of emancipation at once, but of a decision at once to emancipate gradually.

Room in South America for colonization can be obtained cheaply, and in abundance; and when numbers shall be large enough to be company and encouragement for one another, the freed people will not be so reluctant to go.

I am pressed with a difficulty not yet mentioned, one which threatens division among those who, united, are none too strong. An instance of it is known to you. General Hunter is an honest man. He was, and I hope still is, my friend. I valued him none the less for his agreeing with me in the general wish that all men every-where could be free. He proclaimed all men free within certain states, and I repudiated the proclamation. He expected more good and less harm from the measure than I could believe would follow. Yet, in repudiating it, I gave dissatisfaction, if not offense, to many whose support the country can not afford to lose. And this is not the end of it. The pressure in this direction is still upon me, and is increasing. By conceding what I now ask, you can

relieve me, and, much more, can relieve the country in this important point.

Upon these considerations I have again begged your attention to the message of March last.

Before leaving the capital, consider and discuss it among yourselves. You are patriots and statesmen, and as such, I pray you consider this proposition; and at the least, commend it to the consideration of your states and people. As you would perpetuate popular government, for the best people in the world, I beseech you that you do in no wise omit this.

Our common country is in great peril, demanding the loftiest views and boldest action, to bring a speedy relief. Once relieved, its form of government is saved to the world; its beloved history and cherished memories are vindicated; and its happy future fully assured, and rendered inconceivably grand. To you, more than to any others, the privilege is given to assure that happiness and swell that grandeur, and to link your own names therewith forever.

To MCCLELLAN, JULY 13, 1862.

My Dear Sir:-I am told that over 160,000 men have gone with your army to the Peninsula. When I was with you the other day, we made out 86,000 remaining, leaving 73,500 to be accounted for. I believe 23,500 will cover all the killed, wounded, and missing, in all your battles and skirmishes, leaving 50,000 who have left otherwise, and more than 5,000 of these have died, leaving 45,000 of your army still alive and not with it. I believe half or two-thirds of them are fit for duty to-day. Have you any more

perfect knowledge of this than I have? If I am right, and you had these men with you, you could go into Richmond in the next three days. How can they be got to you, and how can they be prevented from getting away in such numbers for the future? A. LINCOLN.

PRESIDENT'S NOMINATION, JULY 16, 1862.

The President of the United States of America to all who shall see these presents, greeting:

Know ye that, reposing special trust and confidence in the patriotism, valor, fidelity, and abilities of Fitz John Porter, I have nominated, and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, do appoint him major-general of volunteers in the service of the United States, to rank as such from the 4th day of July, 1862. He is, therefore, carefully and diligently to discharge the duty of major-general, by doing and performing all manner of things thereunto belonging. And I do strictly charge and require all officers and soldiers under his command to be obedient to his orders as major-general. And he is to observe and follow such orders and directions, from time to time, as he shall recieve from me, or the future. President of the United States of America, or the general, or other superior officers set over him, according to the rules and discipline of war. This commission to continue in force during the pleasure of the President of the United States for the time being.

Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, this 16th day of July, in the year of our Lord one