ligations
of law, instead of transcending I have adhered to the act of Congress to
confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes. If a new law upon
the same subject shall be proposed, its propriety will be duly considered.
The Union must be preserved, and hence all indispensable means must be
employed. We should not be in haste to determine that radical and
extreme measures, which may reach the loyal as well as the disloyal, are
indispensable.

The inaugural address at the beginning of the Administration and the
message to Congress at the late special session were both mainly
devoted to topics domestic controversy out of which the insurrection and
consequent war have sprung. Nothing now occurs to add or subtract to or
from the principles or general purposes stated and expressed in those
documents.

The last ray of hope for preserving the Union peaceably expired at the
assault upon Fort Sumter, and a general review of what has occurred since
may not be unprofitable. What was painfully uncertain then is much better
defined and more distinct now, and the progress of events is plainly in
the right direction. The insurgents confidently claimed a strong support
from north of Mason and Dixon's line, and the friends of the Union were
not free from apprehension on the point. This, however, was soon settled
definitely, and on the right side. South of the line noble little Delaware
led off right from the first. Maryland was made to seem against the Union.
Our soldiers were assaulted, bridges were burned, and railroads torn up
within her limits, and we were many days at one time without the ability
to bring a single regiment over her soil to the capital. Now her bridges
and railroads are repaired and open to the government; she already gives
seven regiments to the cause of the Union, and none to the enemy; and
her people, at a regular election, have sustained the Union by a larger
majority and a larger aggregate vote than they ever before gave to any
candidate or any question. Kentucky, too, for some time in doubt, is now
decidedly and, I think, unchangeably ranged on the side of the Union.
Missouri is comparatively quiet, and, I believe, can, not again be overrun
by the insurrectionists. These three States of Maryland, Kentucky, and
Missouri, neither of which would promise a single soldier at first, have
now an aggregate of not less than forty thousand in the field for the
Union, while of their citizens certainly not more