South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail, by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people.

By the frame of the government under which we live, the same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief; and have, with equal wisdom, provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the gov ernment in the short space of four years.

My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty.

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you.

You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to

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destroy the Government; while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect and defend" it.

I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

ABOLISHING SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

I HAVE never doubted the constitutional authority of Congress to abolish slavery in this District, and I have ever desired to see the national capital freed from the institution in some satisfactory way. Hence there has never been, in my mind, any question upon the subject except the one of expediency, arising in view of all the cir cumstances. If there be matters within and about this act which might have taken a course or shape more satisfactory to my judgment, I do not attempt to specify them. I am gratified that the two principles of compensation and colonization are both recognized and practically applied in the act.

APRIL 16, 1862.

A. H. GARLAND

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I

NEVER had personally an opportunity to know

or study Mr. Lincoln, and my ideas of him are made up altogether from reading, and from conversations with prominent gentlemen who knew him well. From these sources, I have the impression firmly fixed, that Mr. Lincoln possessed great native good sense and a wellbalanced head, what is generally called "common sense.' He had an intuitive judgment of men, and he studied men closely; with these he combined a liberal and charitable judgment, and viewed the shortcomings of his fellows with leniency, mercy and goodness of heart. His intentions were good, and, as I think, on the side of his country at large, and I am of the opinion but few, very few, men would have passed through the ordeal of war, and such a war, as successfully as he did. The blow that struck him down inflicted a wound upon the whole country. His loss to the country was severe indeed, for I belieye, had he lived, the work of pacification, or quieting. the Southern States to practical relations with the Union -to use his own language-would have progressed more smoothly, and been consummated in less time, and with less expense, less bitterness and less loss to all parties.

In Mr. Lincoln's history there is as much profound stimulus to the young men of the country who desire to secure it, as in that of any man who has figured in our annals.

FIRST ANNUAL MESSAGE

TO CONGRESS, DECEMBER 3, 1861.

THE war continues. In considering the policy to be adopted for suppressing the insurrection, I have been anxious and careful that the inevitable conflict for this purpose shall not degenerate into a violent and remorseless revolutionary struggle. I have, therefore, in every case thought it proper to keep the integrity of the Union prominent as the primary object of the contest on our part, leaving all questions which are not of vital military importance to the more deliberate action of the legis lature.

In my present position, I could scarcely be justified were I to omit raising a warning voice against this approach of returning despotism.

It is not needed nor fitting here, that a general argumcnt should be made in favor of popular institutions; but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above labor, in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow, by the use of it, induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them, and drive them