to me that no attempt at negotiation with the insurgent leader could result in any good. He would accept nothing short of severance of the Union-precisely what we will not and can not give. His declarations to this effect are explicit and oft repeated. He does not attempt to deceive us. He affords us no excuse to deceive ourselves. He can not voluntarily reaccept the Union; we can not voluntarily yield it. Between him and us the issue is distinct, simple, and inflexible. It is an issue which can only be tried by war, and decided by victory. If we yield we are beaten; if the Southern people fail him, he is beaten. Either way it would be a victory and defeat following war. What is true, however, of him who heads the insurgent cause, is not necessarily true of those who follow. Although he can not reaccept the Union, they can. Some of them, we know, already desire peace and reunion. The number of such may increase. They can at any moment have peace simply by laying down their arms and submitting to the national authority under the Constitution. After so much the government could not, if it would, maintain war against them. The loyal people would not sustain or allow it. If questions should remain, we would adjust them by the peaceful means of legislation, conference, courts, and votes, operating only in constitutional and lawful channels. Some certain, and other possible, questions are, and would be, beyond the executive power to adjust-as, for instance, the admission of members into Congress, and whatever might require the appropriation of money. The executive power itself would be greatly diminished by the cessation of actual war. Pardons and remissions of forfeitures, however, would still be within executive control. In what spirit and temper this control would be exercised, can be fairly judged of by the past.

(To a close personal friend of Chase.) I have something to tell you that will make you happy. I have just sent Mr. Chase word that he is to be appointed Chief-Justice, and you are the first man I have told of it.

(Mr. President, this is an exhibition of magnanimity and patriotism that could hardly be expected of any one. After what he has said against your administration, which has undoubtedly been reported to you, it was hardly to be expected that you would bestow the most important office within your gift on such a man.)

Although I may have appeared to you and to Mr. Sumner to have been opposed to Chase's appointment, there never has been a moment since the breath left old Taney's body that I did not conceive it to be the best thing to do to appoint Mr. Chase to that high office; and to have done otherwise I should have been recreant to my convictions of duty to the Republican party and to the country.

As to his talk about me, I do not mind that. Chase is, on the whole, a pretty good fellow and a very able man. His only trouble is that he has "the White House fever" a little too bad, but I hope this may cure him and that he will be satisfied.

(Response to a Serenade.) I believe I shall never be old enough to speak without embarrassment when I have nothing to talk about. I have no good news to tell you, and yet I have no bad news to tell. We have talked of elections until there is nothing more to say about them. The most interesting news we now have is from Sherman. We all know where he went in, but I can't tell where he will come out. I will now close by proposing three cheers for General Sherman and his army.

12th. As to cotton. By the external blockade, the price is made certainly six times as great as it was. And yet the enemy gets through at least one-sixth part as much in a given period, say a year, as if there were no blockade, and receives as much for it as he would for a full crop in time of peace. The effect, in substance, is, that we give him six ordinary crops without the trouble of producing any but the first; and at the

same time leave his fields and his laborers free to produce provisions. You know how this keeps up his armies at home and procures supplies from abroad. For other reasons we can not give up the blockade, and hence it becomes immensely important to us to get the cotton away from him. Better give him guns for it than let him, as now, get both guns and ammunition for it. But even this only presents part of the public interest to get out cotton. Our finances are greatly involved in the matter. The way cotton goes now carries so much gold out of the country as to leave us paper currency only, and that so far depreciated as that for every hard dollar's worth of supplies we obtain, we contract to pay two and a half hard dollars hereafter. This is much to be regretted; and, while I believe we can live through it, at all events it demands an earnest effort on the part of all to correct it. And if pecuniary greed can be made to aid us in such effort, let us be thankful that so much good can be got out of pecuniary greed.

26th. (To General W. T. Sherman.) Many, many thanks for your Christmas gift, the capture of Savannah. When you were about leaving Atlanta for the Atlantic coast, I was anxious, if not fearful; but feeling that you were the better judge, and remembering that "nothing risked, nothing gained," I did not interfere. Now, the undertaking being a success, the honor is all yours, for I believe none of us went further than to acquiesce. And taking the work of General Thomas into the count, as it should be taken, it is indeed a great success. Not only does it afford the obvious and immediate military advantages; but in showing to the world that your army could be divided, putting the stronger part to an important new service, and yet leaving enough to vanquish the old opposing force of the whole-Hood's army-it brings those who sat in darkness to see a great light. But what next? I suppose it will be safe if I leave General Grant and yourself to decide.

Please make my grateful acknowledgments to your whole army, officers and men.

27th. (To Doctor John Maclean.) I have the honor to acknowledge the reception of your note of the 20th of December, conveying the announcement that the trustees of the College of New Jersey had conferred upon me the degree of Doctor of Laws.

The assurance conveyed by this high compliment that the course of the Government which I represent has received the approval of a body of gentlemen of such character and intelligence, in this time of public trial is most grateful to me.

Thoughtful men must feel that the fate of civilization upon this continent is involved in the issue of our contest. Among the most gratifying proofs of this conviction is the hearty devotion everywhere exhibited by our schools and colleges to the national cause.

I am most thankful if my labors have seemed to conduct to the preservation of those institutions under which alone we can expect good government, and in its train, sound learning, and the progress of the liberal arts.

30th. (To Colonel A. J. Warner.) It is said that you were on the court-martial that tried John Lennon, and that you are disposed to advise his being pardoned and sent to his regiment. If this be true, telegraph me to that effect at once.

I have never united myself to any church, because I have found difficulty in giving my assent, without mental reservations, to the long, complicated statement of Christian doctrine. which characterize their Articles of Belief and Confessions of Faith. When any church will inscribe over its altar, as its sole qualification for membership, the Saviour's condensed statement of both Law and Gospel, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself," that church will I join with all my heart and all my soul.*

*Date approximate.

1865

January 18th. (To F. P. Blair, Sr.) You having shown me Mr. Davis' letter to you of the 12th instant, you may say to him that I have constantly been, am now, and shall continue, ready to receive any agent whom he, or any other influential person now resisting the national authority may informally send to me with the view of securing peace to the people of our one common country.

(To General U. S. Grant.) Please read and answer this letter as though I was not President, but only a friend. My son, now in his twenty-second year, having graduated at Harvard, wishes to see something of the war before it ends. I do not wish to put him in the ranks, nor yet to give him a commission, to which those who have already served long are better entitled and better qualified to hold. Could he, without embarrassment to you or detriment to the service, go into your military family with some nominal rank, I, and not the public, furnishing his necessary means? If no, say so without the least hesitation, because I am as anxious and as deeply interested that you shall not be encumbered as you can be yourself.

28th. To-day Mr. Blair tells me that on the 21st instant he delivered to Mr. Davis the original, of which the within [letter to Blair of January 18th] is a copy, and left it with him; that at the time of delivering it Mr. Davis read it over twice in Mr. Blair's presence, at the close of which he (Mr. Blair) remarked that the part about "our one common country" related to the part of Mr. Davis' letter about "the two countries," to which Mr. Davis replied that he so understood it.