Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/612

 580 Lincoln on the conditions of peace. [i864 Vallandigham resolution, formed an important and striking feature of the presidential contest. Since the general question of peace and reunion had received so much public discussion and comment during the summer, and especially during the political campaign of the autumn months, at the end of which Lincoln was re-elected President, he restated the problem and its conditions with his usual masterly brevity and clearness in his annual message addressed to Congress on December 6, 1864. "The public purpose to re-establish and maintain the national authority is unchanged, and, as we believe, unchangeable. The manner of continuing the effort remains to choose. On careful consideration of all the evidence acces- sible, it seems to me that no attempt at negotiation with the insurgent leader could result in any good. He would accept nothing short of severance of the Union precisely what we will not, and cannot give. His declarations to this effect are explicit and oft-repeated. He does not attempt to deceive us. He affords us no excuse to deceive ourselves. He cannot voluntarily re-accept the Union ; we cannot voluntarily yield it. Between him and us the issue is distinct, simple and inflexible. It is an issue which can only be tried by war, and decided by victory. If we yield, we are beaten ; if the Southern people fail him, he is beaten. Either way, it would be the victory and defeat following war. What is true, however, of him who heads the insurgent cause is not necessarily true of those who follow. Although he cannot re-accept the Union, they can. Some of them, we know, already desire peace and reunion. The number of such may increase. They can, at any moment, have peace simply by laying down their arms, and submitting to the national authority under the Constitution." (4) ABOLITION AND COMPENSATION. Secession and rebellion, devised and begun by the Southern leaders to extend and perpetuate slavery, proved the most powerful agency for its swift destruction. When Abraham Lincoln first took the presidential oath, he had no thought that he was destined to give "the institution" its death-blow. His Inaugural repeated his many previous declarations that he "had no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists"; and, in addition, he expressed his willingness to accept an amendment to the Constitution which Congress had passed, to the effect that the Federal government should never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. When, however, the States by secession renounced all constitutional obligations, and when by rebellion slavery invited battle and reprisal, the " institution " naturally became exposed to all the chances and accidents of war ; and from the beginning every military measure and movement demonstrated its fatal vulnerability.