hey were believers
in the Border State policy, and favored the colonization of the
negroes, while deprecating "radical and extreme measures." They
forgot that the Republican principle was as true in the midst of
war as in seasons of peace, and that instead of putting it in
abeyance when the storm came, we should cling to it with redoubled
energy and purpose. They forgot that the contest of 1860 was not
only a struggle between slavery and freedom, but a struggle of life
and death, inasmuch as the exclusion of slavery from all federal
territory would not only put the nation's brand upon it in the
States of the South, and condemn it as a public enemy, but virtually
sentence it to death. They forgot that the charge of "abolitionism,"
which was incessantly hurled at the Republican party, was thus by
no means wanting in essential truth, and that when the slaveholders
were vanquished in the election of Mr. Lincoln, their appeal from
the ballot to the bullet was the logical result of their insane
devotion to slavery, and their conviction that nothing could save
it but the dismemberment of the Republic. They forgot that the
Rebellion was simply an advanced stage of slaveholding rapacity,
and that instead of tempting us to cower before it and surrender
our principles, it furnished an overwhelming argument for standing
by them to the death. This movement was fruitful of great mischief
throughout the loyal States, and on my return to Washington in the
fall of this year I was glad to find this fact generally admitted,
and my earnest opposition to it fully justified by the judgment of
Republican members of Congress.

Immediately after the battle of Fredericksburg, on the 13th of
December, the Committee on the Conduct of the War visited that
place for the purpose of inquiring into the facts respecting that
fearful disaster. The country was greatly shocked and excited,
and eager to know who was to blame. We examined Burnside, Hooker,
Sumner, and Woodbury; but prior to this, in a personal interview
with General Burnside, he frankly told me that _he_ was responsible
for the attack. He seemed to be loaded down with a mountain of
trouble and anxiety, and I could see that he felt just as a patriotic
man naturally would, after sacrificing thousands of men by a mistaken
movement. He said he had no military ambition, and frankly confessed
his incapacity to command a large army, as he had done to the
President and Secretary of War, w