amps as contraband of war, and to employ their
labor under fair compensation, and Secretary of War Stanton replied to
him, in behalf of the President, approving his course, and saying,
"You are not to interfere between master and slave on the one hand, nor
surrender slaves who may come within your lines."

This was a significant milestone of progress to the great end that was
thereafter to be reached.

CONSCRIPTING DEAD MEN.

Mr. Lincoln being found fault with for making another "call," said that
if the country required it, he would continue to do so until the matter
stood as described by a Western provost marshal, who says:

"I listened a short time since to a butternut-clad individual, who
succeeded in making good his escape, expatiate most eloquently on
the rigidness with which the conscription was enforced south of the
Tennessee River. His response to a question propounded by a citizen ran
somewhat in this wise:

"'Do they conscript close over the river?'

"'Stranger, I should think they did! They take every man who hasn't been
dead more than two days!'

"If this is correct, the Confederacy has at least a ghost of a chance
left."

And of another, a Methodist minister in Kansas, living on a small
salary, who was greatly troubled to get his quarterly instalment. He at
last told the non-paying trustees that he must have his money, as he was
suffering for the necessaries of life.

"Money!" replied the trustees; "you preach for money? We thought you
preached for the good of souls!"

"Souls!" responded the reverend; "I can't eat souls; and if I could it
would take a thousand such as yours to make a meal!"

"That soul is the point, sir," said the President.

LINCOLN'S REJECTED MANUSCRIPT.

On February 5th, 1865, President Lincoln formulated a message to
Congress, proposing the payment of $400,000,000 to the South as
compensation for slaves lost by emancipation, and submitted it to his
Cabinet, only to be unanimously rejected.

Lincoln sadly accepted the decision, and filed away the manuscript
message, together with this indorsement thereon, to which his signature
was added: "February 5, 1865. To-day these papers, which explain
themselves, were drawn up and submitted to the Cabinet unanimously
disapproved by them."

When the proposed message was disapproved, Lincoln soberly asked: "How
long will the war last?"

To this none could make answer, and he added: "We are spending now, in
carrying