I am pressed with a difficulty not yet mentioned,—­one which threatens division among those who, united, are none too strong.  General Hunter is an honest man.  He was, and I hope still is, my friend.  I valued him none the less for his agreeing with me in the general wish that all men everywhere could be free.  He proclaimed all men free within certain States, and I repudiated the proclamation.  He expected more good and less harm from the measure than I could believe would follow.  Yet in repudiating it, I gave dissatisfaction if not offence to many whose support the country cannot afford to lose.  And this is not the end of it.  The pressure in this direction is still upon me, and is increasing.  By conceding what I now ask, you can relieve me, and, much more, can relieve the country, in this important point.

Upon these considerations I have again begged your attention to the message of March last.  Before leaving the Capitol, consider and discuss it among yourselves.  You are patriots and statesmen, and as such, I pray you, consider this proposition, and at the least commend it to the consideration of your States and people.  As you would perpetuate popular government for the best people in the world, I beseech you that you do in no wise omit this.  Our common country is in great peril, demanding the loftiest views and boldest action to bring it speedy relief.  Once relieved, its form of government is saved to the world, its beloved history and cherished memories are vindicated, and its happy future fully assured and rendered inconceivably grand.

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, so long as you show a determination to perpetuate the institution within your own States.  Beat them at elections, 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 for ever.

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