or
abetting the existing rebellion or any rebellion against the Government of
the United States and to return to their proper allegiance to the United
States, on pain of the forfeitures and seizures as within and by said
sixth section provided.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this twenty-fifth day of July, A.D. 1862,
and of the independence of the United States the eighty-seventh.

A. LINCOLN.

By the President: WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

HOLD MY HAND WHILST THE ENEMY STABS ME

TO REVERDY JOHNSON.

(Private.)

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, July 26, 1862.

HON. REVERDY JOHNSON.

MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 16th is received...........

You are ready to say I apply to friends what is due only to enemies. I
distrust the wisdom if not the sincerity of friends who would hold my
hands while my enemies stab me. This appeal of professed friends has
paralyzed me more in this struggle than any other one thing. You remember
telling me, the day after the Baltimore mob in April, 1861, that it would
crush all Union feeling in Maryland for me to attempt bringing troops over
Maryland soil to Washington. I brought the troops notwithstanding, and
yet there was Union feeling enough left to elect a Legislature the
next autumn, which in turn elected a very excellent Union United States
senator! I am a patient man--always willing to forgive on the Christian
terms of repentance, and also to give ample time for repentance. Still,
I must save this government, if possible. What I cannot do, of course, I
will not do; but it may as well be understood, once for all, that I shall
not surrender this game leaving any available card unplayed.

Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN.

TO CUTHBERT BULLITT.

(Private.)

WASHINGTON, D. C., July 28, 1862.

CUTHBERT BULLITT, Esq., New Orleans, Louisiana.

SIR:--The copy of a letter addressed to yourself by Mr. Thomas J. Durant
has been shown to me. The writer appears to be an able, a dispassionate,
and an entirely sincere man. The first part of the letter is devoted to
an effort to show that the secession ordinance of Louisiana was adopted
against the will of a majority of the people. This is probably true,
and in that fact may be found some instruction. Why did they allow the
ordinance to go into effect? Why did they not assert themselves? Why stand
passive an