would on that occasion be attempted, unless themselves, by resisting so much, should provoke more. They knew that this government desired to keep the garrison in the fort, not to assail them, but merely to maintain visible possession, and thus to preserve the Union from actual and immediate dissolution, trusting, as hereinbefore stated, to time, discussion, and the ballot-box, for final adjustment; and they assailed and reduced the fort for precisely the reverse object,-to drive out the visible authority of the Federal Union, and thus force it to immediate dissolution. * * *

That this was their object the Executive well understood; and having said to them in the inaugural address, "You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors", he took pains not only to keep this declaration good, but also to keep the case so free from the power of ingenious sophistry that the world should not be able to misunderstand it. * *

"By the affair at Fort Sumter, with its surrounding circumstances, that point was reached. Then and thereby the assailants of the government began the conflict of arms, without a gun in sight, or in expectancy to return their fire, save only the few in the fort sent to that harbour years before for their own protection, and still ready to give that protection in whatever was lawful. In this act, discarding all else, they have forced upon the country the distinct issue, 'immediate dissolution or blood."" "And this issue embraces more than the fate of the United States. It presents to the whole family of man the question whether a constitutional republic or democracy-a government of the people by the same people can or cannot maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestice foes. It presents the question whether discontented individuals, too few in number to control administration, according to organic law, in any case, can always, upon the pretences made in this case, or any other pretences, or arbitrarily without any pretence, break up their government, and thus practically put an end to free government upon the earth. It forces us to ask: 'Is there, in all republics, this inherent and fatal weakness?' 'Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence ?'"

NEED OF PREPAREDNESS.

This precedent enunciated and enforced by Abraham Lincoln, should now be regarded as a fundamental principle of our government for all time, and if necessary, adhered to in any future, similar emergency. The character of a government, whether

democratic or monarchical, should not interfere with its effectiveness and power. A republic should enforce authority and obedience equally as vigorously as a monarchy.

Lincoln showed his wisdom and capacity to rule in the great crisis when the states revolted against the government, in standing firm against all opposition from without and from within, and enforcing the supreme law of the land, which was embodied in the constitution.

The need of some provision in the United States for an army in case of emergency was seriously manifested during the crisis of the civil war. If a large standing army could not be maintained, this country should follow the example of Switzerland, and drill all able bodied men so that they could be called upon to defend the nation, if required. All students in public schools and colleges should be thoroughly trained in military tactics, and perhaps put into actual service for a time, so as to fit them for duties, if necessary. Had the United States followed this system previous to 1861, it would have been better prepared to meet the forces that were arrayed against the Union.

A powerful navy should be maintained in the Atlantic and Pacific, and naval academies should be established under central government control on the western and eastern coasts of the United States. Submarines and aeroplanes, etc., should be built and ammunition bountifully supplied so as to be always prepared for contingencies.

When first threatened by the southern rebels, Lincoln called for 75,000 men, though he had not, under the Constitution, the right to do so; but congress, as soon as it met, immediately ratified this act. Later he was voted $500,000,000 for carrying on the war, and authorized to raise an army of 500,000 men. He was Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy as well as being President of the United States. O. N. Stoddard, one of his historians, and also one of his secretaries, said, "He was, for the time being, an absolute dictator, and was not in any way under the control of any other power in the government. He was a sort of revolutionary dictator. He was ready and willing to use all power given to him by an unwritten commission, to see to it that the commonwealth suffered no harm from its enemies. He was president of the entire country-South as well as North. The power to set aside written law was inherent in the dictatorship, but could come even to the dictator only from the hands of necessity and to the safety of the commonwealth."

The great majority of its members were willing that the President assume the power of dictator, while the republic was struggling for life. This he practically did, and congress was willing

to place in his hands all the dictatorial powers that it was possible to give him.

But with all this power given to him, he was no tyrant in any respect, and he used it only for the preservation of the Union. Even the enemies of his country when captured, were treated humanely, unlike those imprisoned by the slaveholders of the South, who had been educated in a school of oppression and slavery.

To meet and check the influence of such men as C. L. Vallandigham, who were aiding the South while living in the North, he even suspended the writ of habeas corpus. He sent the culprit, when convicted, out of Ohio into the southern states where the friends whose cause he was advocating lived. Had Vallandigham, who was in the House of Representatives in 1860, lived in the South, advocated the cause of the Union and talked against the South, as he did against the North, he would have been shot, or imprisoned by the Confederate leader.

Lincoln was opposed to a system of retaliation, and when the South threatened to shoot Union negro soldiers taken prisoners, there was no retaliatory action taken by the North.

The draft was opposed in New York and Governor Seymour requested Mr. Lincoln to suspend the draft, which he refused to do. A riot occurred in New York, the Tribune Office was attacked and the colored orphan asylum was burned. Colonel O'Brien and others were murdered by the rioters.

Lincoln, with his simple honesty and straight-forwardness, and Grant with his faithfulness to duty and his entire lack of creative imagination and with his happy development of sound common sense, represent the liberal element of the middle and working classes; while Seymour, with his smooth and well-bred insidiousness, characterizes the aristocratical elements of the country, furnished with the thinnest guise of liberalism. Seymour occupied the position of a bitter hater of the Republican party with regard to the war, but he always knew how to subject his hatred to a cool political judgment.

In every stage of the great contest he put on the mask best suited to the momentary state of affairs. After having recommended in the first months of 1861 simple submission of the North to the South, the adoption of the Constitution of the Confederacy and the elevation of slavery to a National institution, he attacked the Republican party at the end of the same year, and also in 1862, for conducting the War without sufficient energy and in too weak a manner. In 1863, when Lee invaded Pennsylvania, he tried to convince the North that it was entirely defeated and must accept the conditions which the victorious South would dictate.

Vallandigham made a speech at Mt. Vernon, Ohio, against "King" Lincoln, and urged the people to "hurl the tyrant from the throne." At the same time a New York paper was suppressed for one day for inciting disloyalty.

Lincoln ordered the suspension of the habeas corpus.

General Burnside's Order Number 38, announced April 13th, 1863, was as follows:

"All persons found within our lines, who commit acts for the benefit of the enemies of our country, will be tried and if convicted, will suffer death."

He also stated that: "The habit of declaring sympathy for the enemy, was not to be allowed in the Department of the Ohio. It must be distinctly understood that treason, expressed or implied, will not be tolerated in this department."

Clement L. Vallandigham, formerly member of Congress from Ohio, 1860 became liable to the provision of the order and was arrested on account of disloyal and so-called copperhead speeches. He was tried by a military commission and finally convicted of publicly expressing his sympathy for those in arms against the government of the United States, in violation of Order Number 38. He was sentenced to close confinement in some fortress of the United States. On an application for a writ of habeas corpus, Judge Humphrey H. Leavitt refused to give it.

When the President, as well as Burnside, was attacked by the newspapers of the North, the President wrote to Burnside in answer to a letter from him, tendering his resignation, if he had overstepped his authority, as follows:

"The President directs that without delay you send C. L. Vallandigham with secure guard to the headquarters of Gen. Rosecrans, to be put by him beyond our military lines, and in case. of his return within our lines, he be arrested and kept in close custody for the term specified in his sentence." (McPherson's History of the Rebellion, page 162.)

He went through the South and was treated civilly, but with great caution by the leaders of the rebellion and finally sailed from Bermuda on the 22nd of June, 1863 and arrived at Halifax on July 5th and then stopped at Windsor, Canada. At this time I was studying at Michigan University in Ann Arbor in the law department, and was told about the banishment of Vallandigham.

One day a number of Union boys, including myself, took it into our heads to go over to Windsor and call upon Vallandigham. We met him at his hotel, and he was very glad to see us, taking us for sympathizers. He told us his troubles and denounced the action of the President. We did what we could to cheer him up, and then bade him good-bye.

LINCOLN STANDS BY THE CONSTITUTION AND THE LAW.

Mr. Lincoln said (May 1861): "For my part, I consider the first necessity that is upon us, is of providing that a popular government is not an absurdity. We must settle this question now, whether in a free government the minority have the right to break it up whenever they please. If we fail, it will go far to prove the incapacity of the people to govern themselves. There may be one consideration used in stay of such final judgment, but that is not for us to use in advance. That is, there exists in our case a vast and far-reaching disturbing element, which the history of no other free nation will probably ever present. That, however, is not for us to say at present. Taking the government as we have found it, we will see if the majority can preserve it."

Messrs. Nicolay and Hay state, in their history of Abraham Lincoln, published by the Century Company, that: "Had Lincoln been a careless, reckless man, it is difficult to imagine the damage he might have done, or the risk and excess he might have suffered the Government to run into under such conditions as existed at the commencement of the Civil War. In such a whirl Lincoln's steady common sense and caution were a rock of safety for the Nation."

"Already at this period (the commencement of his administration), Lincoln began the display of that rare ability in administration, which enabled him to smooth mountains of obstacles and bridge rivers of difficulty in his control of men."

Lincoln was devoted to the cause of freedom and a democratic form of government or representative republic, and he felt it his duty to the world to maintain the Constitution in its integrity and the Union in its entirety as an example of a model government for all nations to recognize and copy.