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the Convention. This will enable us to define with some certainty the points on which his policy would be likely to differ from that of Mr. Lincoln. He agrees with him that the war was a matter of necessity, not of choice. He agrees with him in assuming a right to emancipate slaves as a matter of military expediency, differing only as to the method and extent of its application,--a mere question of judgment. He agrees with, him as to the propriety of drafting men for the public service, having, indeed, been the first to recommend a draft of men whom he was to command himself. He agrees with him that it is not only lawful, but politic, to make arrests without the ordinary forms of law where the public safety requires it, and himself both advised and accomplished the seizure of an entire Legislature. So far there is no essential difference, and beyond this we find very little, except that Mr. Lincoln was in a position where he was called on to act with a view to the public welfare, and General McClellan in one where he could express abstract opinions, without the responsibility of trial, to be used hereafter for partisan purposes as a part of his "record." For example, just after his failure to coerce the State of Virginia, he took occasion to instruct his superiors in their duty, and, among other things, stated his opinion that the war "should not be a war looking to the subjugation of the people of any State," but "should be against armed forces and political organizations." The whole question of the right to "coerce a sovereign State" appears to have arisen from a confusion of the relations of a State to its own internal policy and to the general government. But a State is certainly a "political organization," and, if we understand General McClellan rightly, he would coerce a State, but not the people of it,--a distinction which we hope he appreciates better than its victims would be likely to do. We find here also no diversity in principle between the two men, only that Mr. Lincoln has been compelled to do, while General McClellan has had the easier task of telling us what he would do. After the Peninsular campaign, we cannot but think that even the latter would have been inclined to say, with the wisest man that ever spoke in our tongue, "If to do were as easy as to know what 'twere good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces." [5] This letter was published in the public jou
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