out
to suffer persecution, was satisfied.

"I shall never forget," Douglas wrote, "the benignant expression of
his face, the tearful look of his eye, the quiver in his voice, when he
deprecated a resort to retaliatory measures. 'Once begun,' said he, 'I
do not know where such a measure would stop.' He said he could not take
men out and kill them in cold blood for what was done by others. If he
could get hold of the persons who were guilty of killing the colored
prisoners in cold blood, the case would be different, but he could not
kill the innocent for the guilty."(6)

In April, 1864, the North was swept by a wild rumor of deliberate
massacre of prisoners at Fort Pillow. Here was an opportunity for
Lincoln to ingratiate himself with the Vindictives. The President was
to make a speech at a fair held in Baltimore, for the benefit of the
Sanitary Commission. The audience was keen to hear him denounce the
reputed massacre, and eager to applaud a promise of reprisal. Instead,
he deprecated hasty judgment; insisting that the rumor had not been
verified; that nothing should be done on the strength of mere report.

"It is a mistake to suppose the government is indifferent in this
matter, or is not doing the best it can in regard to it. We do not
to-day know that a colored soldier or white officer commanding colored
soldiers has been massacred by the Rebels when made a prisoner. We fear
it--believe it, I may say-but we do not know it To take the life of one
of their prisoners on the assumption that they murder ours, when it is
short of certainty that they do murder ours, might be too serious, too
cruel a mistake."(7)

What a tame, spiritless position in the eyes of the Vindictives! A
different opportunity to lay hold of public opinion he made the most of.
And yet, here also, he spoke in that carefully guarded way, making sure
he was not understood to say more than he meant, which most politicians
would have pronounced over-scrupulous. A deputation of working men from
New York were received at the White House. "The honorary membership
in your association," said he, "as generously tendered, is gratefully
accepted. . . . You comprehend, as your address shows, that the existing
rebellion means more, and tends to more, than the perpetuation of
African slavery-that it is, in fact, a war upon the rights of all
working people."

After reviewing his own argument on this subject in the second message,
he concluded:

"The views the