tion, nor
allow others to assume it on my responsibility.

You speak of it as being the only means of saving the government. On
the contrary, it is itself the surrender of the government. Can it be
pretended that it is any longer the Government of the United States--any
government of constitution and laws wherein a general or a president may
make permanent rules of property by proclamation? I do not say Congress
might not with propriety pass a law on the point, just such as General
Fremont proclaimed.

I do not say I might not, as a member of Congress, vote for it. What I
object to is, that I, as President, shall expressly or impliedly seize and
exercise the permanent legislative functions of the government.

So much as to principle. Now as to policy. No doubt the thing was popular
in some quarters, and would have been more so if it had been a general
declaration of emancipation. The Kentucky Legislature would not budge till
that proclamation was modified; and General Anderson telegraphed me
that on the news of General Fremont having actually issued deeds of
manumission, a whole company of our volunteers threw down their arms and
disbanded. I was so assured as to think it probable that the very arms
we had furnished Kentucky would be turned against us. I think to lose
Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game. Kentucky gone, we
cannot hold Missouri, nor, as I think, Maryland. These all against us,
and the job on our hands is too large for us. We would as well consent
to separation at once, including the surrender of this Capital. On the
contrary, if you will give up your restlessness for new positions, and
back me manfully on the grounds upon which you and other kind friends
gave me the election and have approved in my public documents, we shall
go through triumphantly. You must not understand I took my course on the
proclamation because of Kentucky. I took the same ground in a private
letter to General Fremont before I heard from Kentucky.

You think I am inconsistent because I did not also forbid General Fremont
to shoot men under the proclamation. I understand that part to be within
military law, but I also think, and so privately wrote General Fremont,
that it is impolitic in this, that our adversaries have the power, and
will certainly exercise it, to shoot as many of our men as we shoot of
theirs. I did not say this in the public letter, because it is a subject I
prefer not to discuss in the hearing