? Would you
deal lighter blows rather than heavier ones? Would you give up the
contest, leaving any available means unapplied? I am in no boastful
mood. I shall not do more than I can, and I shall do all I can, to save
the government, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal
inclination. I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with is too vast
for malicious dealing."

The President could afford to overlook the misrepresentations and
invective of the professedly opposition newspapers, but he had also to
meet the over-zeal of influential Republican editors of strong
antislavery bias. Horace Greeley printed, in the New York "Tribune" of
August 20, a long "open letter" ostentatiously addressed to Mr. Lincoln,
full of unjust censure all based on the general accusation that the
President and many army officers as well, were neglecting their duty
under pro-slavery influences and sentiments. The open letter which Mr.
Lincoln wrote in reply is remarkable not alone for the skill with which
it separated the true from the false issue of the moment, but also for
the equipoise and dignity with which it maintained his authority as
moral arbiter between the contending factions.

"EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
August 22, 1862.

"HON. HORACE GREELEY.

"DEAR SIR: I have just read yours of the nineteenth, addressed to myself
through the New York 'Tribune.' If there be in it any statements or
assumptions of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and
here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may
believe to be falsely drawn, I do not, now and here, argue against them.
If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive
it in deference to an old friend whose heart I have always supposed to
be right.

"As to the policy I 'seem to be pursuing,' as you say, I have not meant
to leave any one in doubt.

"I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the
Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored, the
nearer the Union will be 'the Union as it was.' If there be those who
would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save
slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save
the Union unless they could, at the same time, destroy slavery, I do not
agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the
Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save
the Union