to New Orleans, leaving its
hostile guns still barring the commerce of the great river. Still worse,
the country was plunged into gloomy forebodings by the President's call
for three hundred thousand new troops.

About a week before the adjournment of Congress the President again
called together the delegations from the border slave States, and read
to them, in a carefully prepared paper, a second and most urgent appeal
to adopt his plan of compensated abolishment.

"Let the States which are in rebellion see definitely and certainly that
in no event will the States you represent ever join their proposed
confederacy, and they cannot much longer maintain the contest. But you
cannot divest them of their hope to ultimately have you with them so
long as you show a determination to perpetuate the institution within
your own States. Beat them at elections, as you have overwhelmingly
done, and, nothing daunted, they still claim you as their own. You and I
know what the lever of their power is. Break that lever before their
faces, and they can shake you no more forever.... If the war continues
long, as it must if the object be not sooner attained, the institution
in your States will be extinguished by mere friction and abrasion--by
the mere incidents of the war. It will be gone, and you will have
nothing valuable in lieu of it. Much of its value is gone already. How
much better for you and for your people to take the step which at once
shortens the war and secures substantial compensation for that which is
sure to be wholly lost in any other event. How much better to thus save
the money which else we sink forever in the war.... Our common country
is in great peril, demanding the loftiest views and boldest action to
bring it speedy relief. Once relieved, its form of government is saved
to the world, its beloved history and cherished memories are vindicated,
and its happy future fully assured and rendered inconceivably grand. To
you, more than to any others, the privilege is given to assure that
happiness and swell that grandeur, and to link your own names therewith
forever."

Even while the delegations listened, Mr. Lincoln could see that events
had not yet ripened their minds to the acceptance of his proposition. In
their written replies, submitted a few days afterward, two thirds of
them united in a qualified refusal, which, while recognizing the
President's patriotism and reiterating their own loyalty, urged a number
of ra