"I intend no reproach or complaint when I assure you that, in my
opinion, if you all had voted for the resolution in the gradual
emancipation message of last March, the war would now be substantially
ended.
"And the plan therein proposed is yet one of the most potent and swift
means of ending it. 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 as long as you show a determination to perpetuate the
institution within your own States; beat them at election 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. Most
of you have treated me with kindness and consideration; and I trust you
will not now think I improperly touch what is exclusively your own,
when, for the sake of the whole country, I ask: can you, for your
States, do better than to take the course I urge? Discarding punctilio
and maxims adapted to more manageable times, and looking only to the
unprecedentedly stern facts of our case, can you do better in any
possible event? You prefer that the constitutional relation of the
States to the nation shall be practically restored without disturbance
of the institution; and if this were done, my whole duty in this respect
under the Constitution and my oath of office would be performed.
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