re unanimously passed demanding
that the war cease, denouncing the attempt to use the power to draft
men, declaring that our volunteers had been induced to enter the army
under the false declaration that war was waged solely to maintain the
Constitution and to restore the Union----"

"And so it is!" the President interrupted.

"Until you issued your Proclamation, freeing the slaves----"

"But only as a war measure to weaken the South, give us the victory and
restore the Constitution!"

"They refuse to hear your interpretation; they make their own. Van Alen
boldly declares that ninety-nine men out of every hundred whom he
represents in Congress breathe no other prayer than to have an end of
this hellish war. When news of victory comes, there is no rejoicing.
When news of our defeat comes there is no sorrow----"

"Is that statement really true?" the sorrowful lips asked.

"Of the majority who elected him, yes. In the Northwest, distrust and
despair are strangling the hearts of the people. More and more we hear
the traitorous talk of arraying ourselves against New England and
forming a Confederacy of our own. More than two thousand six hundred
deserters have been arrested within a few weeks in Indiana. It generally
requires an armed detail. Most of the deserters, true to the oath of the
order of the Knights of the Golden Circle, desert with their arms----"

"Is it possible?"

"And in one case seventeen of these fortified themselves in a log cabin
with outside paling and ditch for protection, and were maintained by
their neighbors. Two hundred armed men in Rush County resisted the
arrest of deserters. I was compelled to send infantry by special train
to take their ringleaders. Southern Indiana is ripe for Revolution.

"I have positive information that the incoming Democratic Legislature of
my State is in quick touch with the ones gathering in Illinois and
Ohio. In Illinois, your own State, they have already drafted the
resolutions demanding an armistice and a convention of all the States to
agree to an adjustment of the war. It is certain to pass the Illinois
House.

"My own Legislature has put this resolution into a more daring and
dangerous form. They propose boldly and at once to acknowledge the
Southern Confederacy and demand that the Northwest dissolve all further
relations with New England. When they have passed this measure in
Indiana, they expect Ohio and Illinois to follow suit.

"Their secret order wh