the contest leaving every available means unapplied? I am in no
boastful mood: I shall not do more than I can, but I _shall_ do _all_
I can to save the Government, which is my sworn duty as well as my
personal inclination. I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with
is too vast for malicious dealing."

The pressure of these political events in Louisiana had increased Mr.
Lincoln's desire to attempt some form of reconstruction, and the
admission of Messrs. Flanders and Hahn to seats in the House of
Representatives had to a certain degree misled him as to the temper and
tendency of Congress on the whole subject of re-establishing civil
government in the insurrectionary States. During the year 1862, when
the original movements were made in Louisiana, the military situation
grew so critical and so discouraging that the Administration had no
time for the consideration of any other subject than the raising of men
and money. But in 1863 the Government was incalculably strengthened by
General Meade's victory at Gettysburg and by the opening of the
Mississippi River to navigation in consequence of General Grant's
capture of the rebel stronghold of Vicksburg. The latter event
practically destroyed the military power of the Rebellion on the
western side of the Mississippi, and opened, as Mr. Lincoln hoped, a
great opportunity for the formation of State governments loyal to the
Union and able to aid effectively in the overthrow of the Rebellion.

To this end the President proposed a definite plan of reconstruction in
his message of December 8, 1863, sent to the Thirty-eighth Congress at
its first session. He accompanied the message with a public
proclamation which more fully embodied his conception of the
necessities of the situation and the duties of the loyal people.
According to the message of the President "the constitutional
obligation to guarantee to every State in the Union a Republican form
of government and to protect the State in such cases is explicit and
full. . . . This section of the Constitution contemplates a case
wherein the elements within a State favorable to Republican government
in the Union may be too feeble for an opposite and hostile element
external to or even within the State, and such are precisely the cases
with which we now are dealing. An attempt to guarantee and protect a
revived State government constructed in whole or in preponderating
part from the very element against whose hostility