ress might deem best. Mr. Lincoln saw
clearly enough what a serious political role the slavery question was
likely to play during the continuance of the war. Replying to a letter
from the Hon. George Bancroft, in which that accomplished historian
predicted that posterity would not be satisfied with the results of the
war unless it should effect an increase of the free States, the
President wrote:

"The main thought in the closing paragraph of your letter is one which
does not escape my attention, and with which I must deal in all due
caution, and with the best judgment I can bring to it."

This caution was abundantly manifested in his annual message to Congress
of December 3, 1861:

"In considering the policy to be adopted for suppressing the
insurrection," he wrote, "I have been anxious and careful that the
inevitable conflict for this purpose shall not degenerate into a violent
and remorseless revolutionary struggle. I have, therefore, in every
case, thought it proper to keep the integrity of the Union prominent as
the primary object of the contest on our part, leaving all questions
which are not of vital military importance to the more deliberate action
of the legislature.... 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 most conservative opinion could not take alarm at phraseology so
guarded and at the same time so decided; and yet it proved broad enough
to include every great exigency which the conflict still had in store.

Mr. Lincoln had indeed already maturely considered and in his own mind
adopted a plan of dealing with the slavery question: the simple plan
which, while a member of Congress, he had proposed for adoption in the
District of Columbia--the plan of voluntary compensated abolishment. At
that time local and national prejudice stood in the way of its
practicability; but to his logical and reasonable mind it seemed now
that the new conditions opened for it a prospect at least of initial
success.

In the late presidential election the little State of Delaware had, by a
fusion between the Bell and the Lincoln vote, chosen a Union member of
Congress, who identified himself in thought and action with the new
administration. While Delaware was a slave State, only the merest
remnant of the institution existed there--seve