The life and public services of Abraham Lincoln ... together with his state papers, including his speeches, addresses, messages, letters, and proclamations, and the closing scenes connected with his life and death. By Henry J. Raymond. To which are added anecdotes and personal reminiscences of President Lincoln, by Frank B. Carpenter.

482 THE LIFE, PUBLIC SERVICES, AND
izations and State boundaries had been expunged by their
own act; and that they were to be readmitted to the
jurisdiction of the Constitution, and to the privileges of
the Union, only upon such terms and conditions as the
Federal Government of the loyal States might prescribe.
On the other hand, it was held that the acts of secession,
passed by the several State Governments, were absolutely
null and void, and that while the persons who passed
them, and those who aided in giving them effect, by
taking up arms against the United States, had rendered
themselves liable individually to the penalties of treason,
they had not, in any respect, changed the relations of
their States, as such, to the Federal Government. The
governments of those States had been for a time subverted; but they might at any time be re-established upon
a republican basis, under the authority and protection of
the United States. The proclamation proceeded, in the
main, upon the latter theory. The President had the
power, under the Constitution, and by specific legislation
of Congress, to grant pardons upon such conditions as he
might deem expedient. In the exercise of this power,
President Lincoln released from legal penalties and restored to the rights of citizenship all, in each State, with
dent's Policy' will be of value to the country. I fear I am not worthy of all which is therein
kindly said of me personally.
"The sentence of twelve lines, commencing at the top of page 252, I could wish to be not
exactly what it is. In what is there expressed, the writer has not correctly understood me. 1
have never had a theory that secession could absolve States or people from their obligations.
Precisely the contrary is asserted in the Inaugural address; and it was because of my belief in
the continuation of those obligations that I was puzzled, for a time, as to denying the legal
rights of those citizens who remained individually innocent of treason or rebellion. But I mean
no more now than to merely call attention to this point
"Yours respectfully,
"A. LINOOLN."
The sentence referred to by Mr. Lincoln is as follows:"Even so long ago as when Mr. Lincoln, not yet convinced of the danger and magnitude of
the crisis, was endcavoring to persuade himself of Union majorities at the South. and carry on
a war that was half peace, in the hope of a peace that would have been all war, while he was
still enforcing the Fugitive Slave law, under some theory that secession, however it might absolve States from their obligations, could not escheat them of their claims under the Constitution, ar.d that slaveholders in rebellion had alone, among mortals, the privilege of having their
cake.ndl eating it at the same time,-the enemies of free government were striving to persuade
the people that the war was an abolition crusade.. To rebel without reason was proclaimed as
one (ff the rights of nan, while it was carefully kept out of sight that to suppress rebellion Is
tho first duty of gorernment."