ey
already possess, and which if surrendered will surely be used to close the
door of advancement against such as they and to fix new disabilities and
burdens upon them till all of liberty shall be lost.

From the first taking of our national census to the last are seventy
years, and we find our population at the end of the period eight times as
great as it was at the beginning. The increase of those other things which
men deem desirable has been even greater. We thus have at one view what
the popular principle, applied to government through the machinery of
the States and the Union, has produced in a given time, and also what if
firmly maintained it promises for the future. There are already among
us those who if the Union be preserved will live to see it contain
200,000,000. The struggle of to-day is not altogether for to-day; it is
for a vast future also. With a reliance on Providence all the more firm
and earnest, let us proceed in the great task which events have devolved
upon us.

A. LINCOLN.

MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.

WASHINGTON, December 20, 1861.

TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:

I transmit to Congress a letter from the secretary of the executive
committee of the commission appointed to represent the interests of those
American citizens who may desire to become exhibitors at the industrial
exhibition to be held in London in 1862, and a memorial of that
commission, with a report of the executive committee thereof and copies
of circulars announcing the decisions of Her Majesty's commissioners in
London, giving directions to be observed in regard to articles intended
for exhibition, and also of circular forms of application, demands for
space, approvals, etc., according to the rules prescribed by the British
commissioners.

As these papers fully set forth the requirements necessary to enable those
citizens of the United States who may wish to become exhibitors to avail
themselves of the privileges of the exhibition, I commend them to your
early consideration, especially in view of the near approach of the time
when the exhibition will begin.

A. LINCOLN.

LETTER OF REPRIMAND TO GENERAL HUNTER

TO GENERAL HUNTER.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,

Dec.31, 1861

MAJOR-GENERAL HUNTER.

DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 23d is received, and I am constrained to say it
is difficult to answer so ugly a letter in good temper. I am, as you
intimate, losing much of the great confidence I plac