Year: 1862

ILn BLK.


From the New York Tribune, October


23d, 1881


To tie President Of tie United States:


Sir: In days when the public
safety is imminently threatened,
and the tate of a nation may
hang upon a single act, we owe
frank speech, above all other
men, to him who is highest in
authority | shall speak to you
as man to man.


Harsh opinions have been form
ed Of you; even honest men
doubling the probity of your in
tentions. do not share their
doubts. I believe you to be up
right, single-hearted in your de-
sire to rescue the country in the
hour of her utmost need, without
alter-thought of the personal con-
sequences to yourself.


Ii, amid the multitude of con-
tending counsel, you have hesi-
tated and doubted; if. when a
great measure suggested itself,
you have shrunk from the vast
responsibility, afraid to 90 for
ward lest you should 90 wrong,
what wonder? How few, since
the foupdatian of the world, have
found themselves in a position
environed with public evils so
numerous, oppressed with res
possibilities so high and solumn,
as YOURSELF


No man ever escaped from
such-so reads the lessons of his
tory-without a bold heart and
a high faith. Wisdom, prudence,
forethought, these are essential.
But not second to these is that
noble courage which adventures
the Right, and leaves the conse-
quenceS to God.


Men ever follow willingly
daring leader-most Willingly of
all, in great Emergencies. Boldness
and decision command, often in
evil, the re-pect and concurrence
OF mankind. How much more
in good.


There is a measure needing
courage to adopt and embrace it,
which believe to be of virtue
sufficient TO redeem the nation In
It's darkest hour-one only; |
know of no other to which we
NAV nationally trust for relief
from impending dangers without
and within.


The dangers which threaten
Us are two told; First, from the
Confederate forces, composed OF
men whose earnest convictions
and reckless bravery 1t is idle to
deny. Secondly, from ourselves,
compelled to make use of mill
tary power of proportions so 81
gantic that no nation ever per-
mitted the existance of such
without more or less risk to the
people who employed it. If we
think lightly of this latter CAN
ger we slight the teaching of al
past time.


As to the first; Have you not
had your moments Of doubt
whether we are TO succeed at all?
whether the Union, once so glo-
rlous, will ever be united?
whether peace, which we used to
enjoy with as little gratitude as
we do the sunlight or the air we
breathe, will ever again settle
down over our distracted coun-
try?


III have doubts of all this it is
only because | do not know
what your action will be. We
have at our disposal the means
means OF certain success; but |
cannot tell whether, while there
Is yet time, you Will decide to
employ them.


Our enemies, like the Grecian
hero, have one vulnerable point.
You have not tonched it yet.
What should have been their ell
ement of weakness has been suf-
fered to remain an element of
streghth.


They have nearly a million of
able bodied men of fit age for
war or for labor. Holding these
men IN bondage, and employing
them to till the soil, they are en-
abled to sendto the battlefield al
most there intire white male "a
dult population, yet preserve
their commissariat sufficiently
supplied.


1t he's always been a great
wrong that these men and their
families should be held In bond
age. We of the North have
hitherto acquiesed in it, lest, in
the endeavor to redress it In vio-
lation OF the Constitution, great
er evils might enSue


But the time has come when
il Is constitutional to redress 1t.