Mr. Lincoln's letter to the mass meeting at Illinois is
a striking specimen of masculine logic, unfortunately furnished, however, with a kind of tag or tassel of Yankee vulgarisms, not unmixed with Yankee humour. Mr. Lincoln addresses himself to the peace party. He sees the three inevitable courses before him of attaining peace,—by force of arms, the way he is taking,—by giving up the Union, which no one wishes him to take,—or a third and vague course called compromise, with which he proceeds to deal. Compromise must be made with some one, and some one able to secure the assent of the people he represents. You cannot compromise with Southern refugees, for they have no power. "General Meade's army can keep Lee's army out of Pennsylvania, and I think can ultimately drive it out of existence ; but no paper compro- mise, to which the controllers of General Lee's army are not agreed, can at all affect that army." Compromise, then, must be with those who can secure the army. But they show no wish for compromise, and the United States could not offer one. Then, as to the negro question, the President does not disclaim his own sympathy with the negro, but does disclaim having appealed to any other person's sympathy. He asks no one to be taxed for negroes, to fight for negroes, except so far as the taxation will be less and the fighting less severe than taxation or fighting for the Union without the aid of the negroes. The leaders of his own armies value very highly the military results of his emancipation policy, and it is to relieve the burden on the country, not to increase it, that he adopted that policy. The aid of the negroes, however, cannot be secured without a price, and freedom seems the legitimate price of that aid. After this masculine logic, Mr. Lincoln tails off into "Uncle Sam," mentions with pride that worthy's "webbed feet, which have been present wherever the ground was a little damp," and becomes generally un- grammatical, unintelligible, and eloquent.
