Union, and
not as a Territory. No State nor the people of any State had any power
to withdraw from the Union. They could not do it peacefully; they
undertook to do it by arms. We crushed the attempt; we trampled their
armies under our feet; we captured the rebellion; the States are ours;
and we entered them to save, and not to destroy.

"The Constitution of the United States requires the President, from
time to time, to give to Congress information of the state of the
Union. Who has any right to presume that the President will not
furnish the information which his constitutional duty requires? He has
at his control all the agencies which are necessary. There is the able
Cabinet who surround him, with all the officers appointed under them:
the post-masters under the Post-office Department, the treasury agents
under the Treasury Department, and almost two hundred thousand men
under the control of the War Department, in every part of this
'disaffected' region, who can bring to the President information from
every quarter of all the transactions that exist there. That the
President of the United States will be sustained, in the views which
he takes in his message, by the people of this country, is as certain
as the revolutions of the earth; and it is our duty to act
harmoniously with him, to sustain him, to hold up his hands, to
strengthen his heart, to speak to him words of faith, friendship, and
courage.

"I know that in all these Southern States there are a thousand things
to give us pain, sometimes alarm, but notwithstanding the bad
appearance which from time to time presents itself in the midst of
that boiling caldron of passion and excitement which the war has left
still raging there, the real progress which we have made has been most
wonderful. I am one of those who look forward with hope, for I believe
God reigns and rules in the affairs of mankind. I look beyond the
excitement of the hour and all the outbreaking passion which sometimes
shows itself in the South, which leads them to make enactments in
their Legislatures which are disgraceful to themselves, and can never
be sanctioned by the people of this country, and also in spite of all
the excitement of the North, I behold the future full of confidence
and hope. We have only to come up like men, and stand as the real
friends of the country and the Administration, and give to the policy
of the President a fair and substantial trial, and all will be well."

Mr