it was determined to take the whole matter to President Lincoln.  Accordingly, an interview was arranged with Mr. Lincoln, to whom the plans of Captain Ericsson were presented, with all the unction and enthusiasm of an honest and mastering conviction, by Mr. Winslow and Mr. Griswold, who had now become thoroughly interested in the undertaking.  The President listened with attention and growing interest.  When they were done, Mr. Lincoln said, ’Gentlemen, why do you bring this matter to me?  Why not take it to the Department having these things in charge?’ ’It has been taken already to the Department, and there met with a repulse, and we come now to you with it, Mr. President, to secure your influence.  We are here not simply as business men, but as lovers of our country, and we believe most thoroughly that here is something upon which we can enter that will be of vast benefit to the Republic,’ was the answer.  Mr. Lincoln was roused by the terrible earnestness of Mr. Winslow and his friend Griswold, and said, in his inimitable manner, ’Well, I don’t know much about ships, though I once contrived a canal-boat—­the model of which is down in the Patent Office—­the great merit of which was that it could run where there was no water.  But I think there is something in this plan of Ericsson’s.  I’ll tell you what I will do.  I will meet you to-morrow at ten o’clock, at the office of Commodore Smith, and we will talk it all over.’  The next morning the meeting took place according to the appointment.  Mr. Lincoln was present.  The Secretary of the Navy, with many of the influential men of the Navy Department, also were there.  The office where they met was rude in its belongings.  Mr. Lincoln sat upon a rough box.  Mr. Winslow, without any knowledge of naval affairs other than that which general reading would give, entered upon his task with considerable trepidation, but his whole heart was in it, and his showing was so earnest, practical, and patriotic, that a profound impression was made.  ‘Well,’ said Mr. Lincoln, after Mr. Winslow had finished, ‘well, Commodore Smith, what do you think of it?’ The Commodore made some general and non-committal reply, whereupon the President, rising from the box, added, ’Well, I think there is something in it.  Good morning, gentlemen,’ and went out.  From this interview grew a Government contract with Messrs. Winslow and Griswold for the construction of the ‘Monitor,’ the vessel to be placed in the hands of the Government within a hundred days at a cost of $275,000.  The work was pushed with all diligence till the 30th of January, 1862, when the ship was launched at Greenpoint, one hundred and one days from the execution of the contract, thus making the work probably the most expeditious of any recorded in the annals of mechanical engineering.”

At the assembling of Congress in December, 1861, Lincoln presented his first Annual Message.  Among its most noteworthy passages was that which touched upon the relations between labor and capital—­a subject so prominent in our later day.  It was alluded to in its connection with the evident tendency of the Southern Confederacy to discriminate in its legislation in favor of the moneyed class and against the laboring people.  On this point the President said: