“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 in 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 is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery.

“If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.  And if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it.  And if I could save it by freeing some, and leaving others alone, I would also do that.

“What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

“I shall do less whenever I believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and shall do more whenever I believe doing more will help the cause.

“I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

“I have here stated my purpose, according to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish, that all men everywhere could be free.”

This reply, placing the Union before all else, did “more to steady the loyal sentiment of the country in a very grave emergency than anything that ever came from Lincoln’s pen.”  It was, very naturally, “particularly disrelished by anti-slavery men,” whose views were not modified by it, but whose temper was irritated in proportion to the difficulty of meeting it.  Mr. Greeley himself, enthusiastic and woolly-witted, allowed this heavy roller to pass over him, and arose behind it unaware that he had been crushed.  He even published a retort, which was discreditably abusive.  A fair specimen of his rhetoric was his demand to be informed whether Mr. Lincoln designed to save the Union “by recognizing, obeying, and enforcing the laws, or by ignoring, disregarding, and in fact defying them.”  Now the precise fact which so incensed Mr. Greeley and all his comrades was that the President was studiously and stubbornly insisting upon “recognizing, obeying, and enforcing the laws;” and the very thing which they were crying for was a step which, according to his way of thinking, would involve that he should “ignore, disregard, and defy” them.  They had not shrunk from taking this position, when pushed toward it.  They had contemned the Constitution, and had declared that it should not be allowed to stand in the way of doing those things which, in their opinion, ought to be done.  Their