character would have swamped our cause ere this by incautious measures and reckless expeditions. For such a period as this, hope, caution, and prudence are as necessary as sagacity, wisdom, and patriotism.

"NEVER DESERTING A GOOD PRINCIPLE ONCE ADOPTED." Who ever heard of Abraham Lincoln abandoning, a good principle once embraced? When and where has he taken the "back track" since his inauguration? His good principles have carried him onward and upward. If he has been "slow," he has also been sure. He has always had his pickets out to guard against surprise. His enemies have called him "vacillating;" but where is the proof of it? Can they specify a single act of his that justly exposes him to this censure? Not one. The record of his administration shows that he has moved "onward, right onward," for liberty, justice, and humanity. If he has not adopted certain measures so soon or hastily as many desired at the time, let them disprove, if they can, that his policy has been the salvation of the nation. We fully believe that coming generations will accord the highest praise to his administration in this respect. Let the reader carefully peruse the following letter of Mr. Lincoln, recently penned in the honesty of his heart, and say if it does not confirm the views that we have expressed :

To A. G. HODGES, Esq., Frankfort, Ky.

EXECUTIVE MANSION,

WASHINGTON, April 4, 1864.

MY DEAR SIR,-You ask me to put in writing the substance of what I verbally said the other day, in your presence, to Gov. Bramlette and Senator Dixon. It was about as follows:

I am naturally antislavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when I did not see, think, and feel that it was wrong; and yet I have never understood that the Presidency

conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. It was in the oath I took, that I would, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath; nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power. I understood, too, that, in ordinary civil administration, this oath even forbade me to practically indulge my primary abstract judgment on the moral question of slavery. I had publicly declared this many times and in many ways; and I aver, that, to this day, I have done no official act in mere deference to my abstract judgment and feeling on slavery. I did understand, however, that my oath to preserve the Constitution to the best of my ability imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every indispensable means, that Government, that nation, of which that Constitution was the organic law.

Was it possible to lose the nation, and yet preserve the Constitution ?

By general law, life and limb must be protected. Yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a limb.

I feel that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it. I could not feel, that, to the best of my ability, I had even tried to preserve the Constitution, if, to preserve slavery or any minor matter, I should permit the wreck of the Government, country, and Constitution altogether.

When, early in the war, Gen. Frémont attempted military emancipation, I forbade it, because I did not then think it an indispensable necessity. When, a little later, Gen. Cameron (then Secretary of War) suggested the arming of the blacks, I objected, because I did not yet think it an indispensable necessity. When, still later, Gen. Hunter attempted military emancipation, I again forbade it, because I did not yet think the indispensable necessity had come.

When, in March, May, and July, 1862, I made earnest and successive appeals to the Border States to favor compensated emancipation, I believed the indispensable necessity for military emancipation and arming of the blacks would come, unless averted by that

measure. They declined the proposition; and I was, in my best judgment, driven to the alternative of either surrendering the Union, and with it the Constitution, or of laying the strong hand upon the colored element. I chose the latter. In choosing it, I hoped for greater gain than loss; but of this I was not entirely confident.

More than a year of trial now shows no loss by it in our foreign relations, none in our home popular sentiment, none in our white military force, no loss by it anyhow or anywhere. On the contrary, it shows a gain of quite 130,000 soldiers, seamen, and laborers. These are palpable facts, about which, as facts, there can be no cavilling. We have the men, and we could not have had them with out the measure. Now, let any Union man, who complains of the measure, test himself by writing down in one line that he is for subduing the Rebellion by force of arms; and the next, that he is for taking these 130,000 men from the Union side, and placing them where they would be but for the measure he condemns. If he cannot face his cause so stated, it is because he cannot face the truth.

I add a word which was not in the verbal conversation. In telling this tale, I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity. I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years' struggle, the nation's condition is not what either party or any man devised or expected: God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South shall pay fair. ly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God. Yours truly, A. LINCOLN.

This letter is valuable, as proof that Mr. Lincoln never abandons a good principle once adopted; while as a literary production, replete with sound sense, lofty sentiments, profound logic, true political philosophy, and poetic beauty, it was never surpassed. It will bear comparison with the most felicitous epistolary efforts of the greatest statesmen of this or other lands.

Mrs. Stowe, the celebrated authoress, speaking of the oneness of his purpose, says,

"Surrounded by all sorts of conflicting claims, by traitors, by halfhearted, timid men, by Border-State men and Free-State men, by radical abolitionists and conservatives, he has listened to all, weighed the words of all; waited, observed; yielded now here, and now there; but in the main kept one inflexible, honest purpose, and drawn the national ship through."

"HONEST, YET SHREWD; CARELESS IN FORMS, CONSCIENTIOUS IN ESSENTIALS." This is another element of Mr. Lincoln's character named in the portraiture, to which we will return. The worth of HONESTY, CONSCIENTIOUSNESS, in a leader now, when treachery and treason have done their worst, no man can estimate. Suppose we had another James Buchanan in the presidential chair now,who has been long known for the opposite of political honesty and conscientiousness: what could loyalty do? Farewell to our Republican Government, farewell to our liberties and national glory, if such a man were our President!

a man

In this hour of peril, we need an honesty at the helm that will inspire confidence in every loyal heart. The bare suspicion of political chicanery in our leader would almost paralyze the arm that is lifted to crush the Rebellion. The suspicion that Gen. M'Clellan was not faithful to our cause sacrificed the confidence of the nation, and doomed him to inglorious retirement. And thus it ought And thus it ought to be. Treachery well-nigh destroyed the Government, and HONESTY alone can save it. Thanks, thanks, that a good Providence has given us a ruler whose honesty is "clear as the sun, fair as the moon," and, to our malignant foes, "terrible as an army with banners" "!

Reader, how much do you suppose our enemies would

give for the proof of deceit and political fraud in Abraham Lincoln? It would be worth the price of our national destruction to them, since they might use it to destroy us. Ah! never before did this country have such occasion to glorify HONESTY as now. Never before had the people so great reason to bless the Lord for an honest man, "the noblest work of God."

"DOING NOTHING WHEN HE KNOWS NOT WHAT TO DO." How many men, in this dilemma, rush headlong, hit or miss! Being ambitious, and devoid of prudence and foresight, they conquer perplexity by sacrificing success. But not so with a man of as much sagacity and caution as Mr. Lincoln possesses. He can see no advantage in blind action. If something be lost by waiting for developments, less is gained by a reckless leap in the dark. Better do nothing than to act without intelligence and foresight, especially in a crisis like the present.

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But we will not pursue this portrait, except to notice one more point, contained in the sentence, Asking good people to pray for him, and publicly acknowledging the hand of God in events."

Recall what we have already said of his recognition of divine agency in human affairs. Beginning with his speech on leaving Springfield, and ending with his last proclamation of thanksgiving to God for recent victories, observe that here is a fundamental principle of his religious character. He believes in Providence; "and, believing, he maintains." Frequently he alluded, in his speeches on his presidential tour, to the utter impossibility of foreseeing what the morrow might bring forth to the country; and, at Buffalo, he used the following words of wisdom: "When it is considered that these difficulties are without precedent,