his case so stated, it is
only because he cannot face the truth."

I add a word which was not in the verbal conversation. In telling this
tale I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity. I claim not to have
controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.
Now, at the end of three years' struggle, the nation's condition is not
what either party, or any man, devised or expected. God alone can claim
it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a
great wrong, and wills also that we of the North, as well as you of
the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial
history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and
goodness of God.

Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN.

TO MRS. HORACE MANN.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, April 5, 1864.

MRS HORACE MANN:

MADAM:--The petition of persons under eighteen, praying that I would
free all slave children, and the heading of which petition it appears you
wrote, was handed me a few days since by Senator Sumner. Please tell these
little people I am very glad their young hearts are so full of just and
generous sympathy, and that, while I have not the power to grant all they
ask, I trust they will remember that God has, and that, as it seems, he
wills to do it.

Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN.

TELEGRAM TO GENERAL BUTLER.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, April 12, 1864.

MAJOR-GENERAL BUTLER, Fort Monroe, Va.:

I am pressed to get from Libby, by special exchange, Jacob C. Hagenbuek,
first lieutenant, Company H, Sixty-seventh Pennsylvania Volunteers. Please
do it if you can without detriment or embarrassment.

A. LINCOLN.

TELEGRAM TO GENERAL MEADE.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, April 17, 1864.

MAJOR-GENERAL MEADE, Army of the Potomac:

Private William Collins of Company B, of the Sixty-ninth New York
Volunteers, has been convicted of desertion, and execution suspended as
in numerous other cases. Now Captain O'Neill, commanding the regiment,
and nearly all its other regimental and company officers, petition for his
full pardon and restoration to his company. Is there any good objection?

A. LINCOLN.

LECTURE ON LIBERTY

ADDRESS AT SANITARY FAIR IN BALTIMORE,

APRIL 18, 1864.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--Calling to mind that we are in Baltimore, we
cannot fail to note that the world moves. Looking upon these many people
assembled here to serve, as they best