rence of the scenes through which we
are now passing.

Governor Shepley has informed me that Mr. Durant is now taking a registry,
with a view to the election of a constitutional convention in Louisiana.
This, to me, appears proper. If such convention were to ask my views, I
could present little else than what I now say to you. I think the thing
should be pushed forward, so that, if possible, its mature work may reach
here by the meeting of Congress.

For my own part, I think I shall not, in any event, retract the
emancipation proclamation: nor, as executive, ever return to slavery any
person who is free by the terms of that proclamation, or by any of the
acts of Congress.

If Louisiana shall send members to Congress, their admission to seats
will depend, as you know, upon the respective Houses, and not upon the
President.

Yours very truly,

A. LINCOLN.

TO GOVERNOR SEYMOUR.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, August 7, 1863.

HIS EXCELLENCY HORATIO SEYMOUR, Governor of New York:

Your communication of the 3rd instant has been received and attentively
considered.

I cannot consent to suspend the draft in New York, as you request,
because, among other reasons, time is too important.

By the figures you send, which I presume are correct, the twelve districts
represented fall into two classes of eight and four respectively. The
disparity of the quotas for the draft in these two classes is certainly
very striking, being the difference between an average of 2200 in one
class and 4864 in the other. Assuming that the districts are equal one to
another in entire population, as required by the plan on which they were
made, this disparity is such as to require attention. Much of it, however,
I suppose will be accounted for by the fact that so many more persons fit
for soldiers are in the city than are in the country who have too recently
arrived from other parts of the United States and from Europe to be either
included in the census of 1860, or to have voted in 1862. Still, making
due allowance for this, I am yet unwilling to stand upon it as an entirely
sufficient explanation of the great disparity.

I shall direct the draft to proceed in all the districts, drawing,
however, at first from each of the four districts--to wit, the Second,
Fourth, Sixth, and Eighth--only, 2200 being the average quota of the other
class. After this drawing, these four districts, and also the Seventeenth
and Twenty-ninth, shall be