tory, or at the bar of God, I do not
know. I can only hope.'"

The President's sombre eyes met his with a penetrating flash and rested
on Senator Winter who remained in the background. He took the paper,
laid it carefully on his desk, threw his right leg across the corner of
the long table in easy, friendly attitude and began his reply
persuasively:

"The editor of the _Tribune_, gentleman, if on my side, is equal to an
army of a hundred thousand men in the field. I've known this from the
first. Against me he throws this army in the rear and fires into my
back. My grievance is that his Prayer which you have made yours is being
used for ammunition in this rear attack. It should have been presented
to me first, if it were a genuine prayer. I have read it carefully. It
is full of blunders of fact and reasoning, but it fairly expresses the
discontent in the minds of many. Its unfair assumptions will poison
millions of readers against me----"

He paused, opened a drawer in his desk, took from it a sheet of paper on
which he had written in firm, clear hand a brief message in reply, and
turned to his petitioners:

"And therefore, gentlemen, I have written a few words in answer to this
attack. I ask you to give it the same wide hearing you have accorded the
assault. I'll read it to you:

"'Dear Sir:--I have just read yours of the 19th instant addressed to
myself through the _New York Tribune_.

"'If there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact, which I know
to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them.

"'If there be any influences which I believe to be falsely drawn, I do
not now and here argue against them.

"'If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I
waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always
supposed to be right.

"'As to the policy I seem to be pursuing, as you say, I have not meant
to leave anyone in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it in the
shortest way under the Constitution.

"'The sooner the National authority can be restored, the nearer the
Union will be,--the Union as it was.

"'If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at
the same time save Slavery, I do not agree with them.

"'If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at
the same time destroy Slavery, I do not agree with them.

"'_My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or
destroy Slavery_.

"'If