In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.  The Government will not assail you.  You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to “preserve, protect, and defend it.”

I am loath to close.  We are not enemies, but friends.  We must not be enemies.  Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.  The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

MARCH 4, 1861.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

WASHINGTON, March 16, 1861.

To the Senate: 

The Senate has transmitted to me a copy of the message sent by my predecessor to that body on the 21st day of February last, proposing to take its advice on the subject of a proposition made by the British Government through its minister here to refer the matter in controversy between that Government and the Government of the United States to the arbitrament of the King of Sweden and Norway, the King of the Netherlands, or the Republic of the Swiss Confederation.

In that message my predecessor stated that he wished to submit to the
Senate the precise questions following, namely: 

Will the Senate approve a treaty referring to either of the sovereign powers above named the dispute now existing between the Governments of the United States and Great Britain concerning the boundary line between Vancouvers Island and the American continent?  In case the referee shall find himself unable to decide where the line is by the description of it in the treaty of 15th June, 1846, shall he be authorized to establish a line according to the treaty as nearly as possible?  Which of the three powers named by Great Britain as an arbiter shall be chosen by the United States?

I find no reason to disapprove of the course of my predecessor in this important matter, but, on the contrary, I not only shall receive the advice of the Senate therein cheerfully, but I respectfully ask the Senate for their advice on the three questions before recited.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

WASHINGTON, March 26, 1861.

To the Senate of the United States: 

I have received a copy of a resolution of the Senate passed on the 25th instant, requesting me, if in my opinion not incompatible with the public interest, to communicate to the Senate the dispatches of Major Robert Anderson to the War Department during the time he has been in command of Fort Sumter.

On examining the correspondence thus called for I have, with the highest respect for the Senate, come to the conclusion that at the present moment the publication of it would be inexpedient.