lation. I believe that it is not only possible, but in fact easier, to do this without deciding or even considering whether these States have ever been out of the Union, than with it. Finding themselves safely at home, it would be utterly immaterial whether they had ever been abroad. Let us all join in doing the acts necessary to restoring the proper practical relations between these States and the Union, and each forever after innocently indulge his own opinion whether in doing the acts he brought the States from without into the Union, or only gave them proper assistance, they never having been out of it. The amount of constituency, so to speak, on which the new Louisiana government rests, would be more satisfactory to all if it contained fifty thousand, or thirty thousand, or even twenty thousand, instead of only about twelve thousand, as it does. It is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the coloured man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers. "Still, the question is not whether the Louisiana government, as it stands, is quite all that is desirable. The question is, will it be wiser to take it as it is and help to improve it, or to reject and disperse it? Can Louisiana be brought into proper practical relation with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new State government? Some twelve thousand voters in the heretofore slave State of Louisiana have sworn allegiance to the Union, assumed to be the rightful political power of the State, held elections, organised a State government, adopted a freeState constitution, giving the benefit of public schools equally to black and white, and empowering the legislature to confer the elective franchise upon the coloured man. Their legislature has already voted to ratify the constitutional amendment recently passed by Congress, abolishing slavery throughout the nation. These twelve thousand persons are thus fully committed to the Union and to perpetual freedom in the State, committed to the very things, and nearly all the things, the nation wants, and they ask the nation's recognition and its assistance to make good their committal. "If we reject and spurn them, we do our utmost to disorganise and disperse them. We, in effect, say to the white man: You are worthless or worse; we will neither help you, nor be helped by you. To the blacks, we say: This cup of liberty, which these, your old masters, hold to your lips, we will dash from you, and leave you to the chances of gathering the spilled and scattered contents in some vague and undefined when, where, and how. If this course, discouraging and paralysing both white and black, has any tendency to bring Louisiana into proper, practical relations with the Union, I have so far been unable to perceive it. If, on the contrary, we recognise and sustain the new government, the converse of all this is made true. ... "... What has been said of Louisiana will apply generally to other States. And yet so great peculiarities pertain to each State, and such important and sudden changes occur in the same State, and withal so new and unprecedented is the whole case, that no exclusive and inflexible plan can safely be prescribed as to details and collaterals. Such exclusive and inflexible plan would surely become a new entanglement. Important principles may and must be inflexible. In the present situation, as the phrase goes, it may be my duty to make some new announcement to the people of the South. I am considering, and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will be proper." INDEX. "ALL men are created equal," | Clay, Henry,- Discussion of, 59. Alton meeting. Lincoln's reply BIXBY, Mrs., Mother of five Note on Lincoln's eulogy, 40. His views on slavery, 179. Enlistment of, 318. Speech at, Sept. 16, 1859, Black men enough to marry Congress, Power of, over slavery, black women, 110. Black woman not wanted for Bullitt, Cuthbert, Letter to, 273. 25. Conkling, James C., Letter to, Conspiracy, Democratic, to per- 103, 139. CAPITAL and labour, Relations | DECISIONS of Courts discussed, Chase's amendment to Nebraska Democrats convinced by speech . Act, 82. Douglas, S. A., — 43. Claims that Republicans are "Don't care if slavery is voted Declaration, 113. Quotes Lincoln inaccurately, Lincoln's want of, 96. - Compensated, offered, 269. 294. FEMALE suffrage favoured, 24. Freeport meeting, Lincoln's re- GALESBURG meeting, Lincoln's |