this. Are you for it? If
you are you should say so plainly. If you are not for force nor yet for
dissolution, there only remains some imaginable compromise.

I do not believe that any compromise embracing the maintenance of the
Union is now possible. All that I learn leads to a directly opposite
belief. The strength of the rebellion is its military, its army. That army
dominates all the country and all the people within its range. Any offer
of terms made by any man or men within that range, in opposition to that
army, is simply nothing for the present; because such man or men have no
power whatever to enforce their side of a compromise, if one were made
with them.

To illustrate: Suppose refugees from the South and peace men of the North
get together in convention, and frame and proclaim a compromise embracing
a restoration of the Union. In what way can that compromise be used to
keep Lee's army out of Pennsylvania? Meade's army can keep Lee's army out
of Pennsylvania, and, I think, can ultimately drive it out of existence.
But no paper compromise to which the controllers of Lee's army are not
agreed can at all affect that army. In an effort at such compromise we
would waste time, which the enemy would improve to our disadvantage; and
that would be all.

A compromise, to be effective, must be made either with those who control
the rebel army, or with the people, first liberated from the domination of
that army by the success of our own army. Now allow me to assure you
that no word or intimation from that rebel army, or from any of the men
controlling it, in relation to any peace compromise, has ever come to
my knowledge or belief. All charges and insinuations to the contrary are
deceptive and groundless. And I promise you that if any such proposition
shall hereafter come, it shall not be rejected and kept a secret from you.
I freely acknowledge myself to be the servant of the people, according to
the bond of service, the United States Constitution, and that, as such, I
am responsible to them.

But, to be plain: You are dissatisfied with me about the negro. Quite
likely there is a difference of opinion between you and myself upon
that subject. I certainly wish that all men could be free, while you,
I suppose, do not. Yet, I have neither adopted nor proposed any measure
which is not consistent with even your view, provided you are for the
Union. I suggested compensated emancipation; to which you replied you
wished not