and accurately as
you call.

A. LINCOLN.

BROKEN EGGS CANNOT BE MENDED

EXTRACT FROM LETTER TO AUGUST BELMONT.

July 31, 1862.

Broken eggs cannot be mended; but Louisiana has nothing to do now but to
take her place in the Union as it was, barring the already broken eggs.
The sooner she does so, the smaller will be the amount of that which will
be past mending. This government cannot much longer play a game in
which it stakes all, and its enemies stake nothing. Those enemies must
understand that they cannot experiment for ten years trying to destroy the
government, and if they fail, still come back into the Union unhurt. If
they expect in any contingency to ever have the Union as it was, I join
with the writer in saying, "Now is the time."

How much better it would have been for the writer to have gone at this,
under the protection of the army at New Orleans, than to have sat down in
a closet writing complaining letters northward!

Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN.

TO COUNT GASPARIN.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,

August 4, 1863.

TO COUNT A. DE GASPARIN.

DEAR SIR--Your very acceptable letter, dated Orbe, Canton de Vaud,
Switzerland, 18th of July, 1862, is received. The moral effect was the
worst of the affair before Richmond, and that has run its course downward.
We are now at a stand, and shall soon be rising again, as we hope. I
believe it is true that, in men and material, the enemy suffered more than
we in that series of conflicts, while it is certain that he is less able
to bear it.

With us every soldier is a man of character, and must be treated with
more consideration than is customary in Europe. Hence our great army, for
slighter causes than could have prevailed there, has dwindled rapidly,
bringing the necessity for a new call earlier than was anticipated. We
shall easily obtain the new levy, however. Be not alarmed if you shall
learn that we shall have resorted to a draft for part of this. It seems
strange even to me, but it is true, that the government is now pressed
to this course by a popular demand. Thousands who wish not to personally
enter the service are nevertheless anxious to pay and send substitutes,
provided they can have assurance that unwilling persons, similarly
situated, will be compelled to do likewise. Besides this, volunteers
mostly choose to enter newly forming regiments, while drafted men can be
sent to fill up the old ones, wherein man for man they are quit