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.

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'i'HE JLIFE, PUBLIC SERVICES, AND

that was consistent. Such is the truth, and the Judge
hias a right to make all he can out of it. But when he,
)y a general charge, conveys the idea that I withheld
supplies from the soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican war, or did any thing else to hinder the soldiers, he
is, to say the least, lgrossly and altogether mistaken, as a
consultation of the records will prove to him."
We need no more thorough refutation of this imputation upon lhis patriotism than is embodied in this clear
and distinct denial. It required no little sagacity, at that
time, to draw a clear line of demarcation between supporting the countly while engaged in war, and sustaining
the war; itself, which Mr. Lincoln, in common with the
(rre;lat bodyl of the party with which lie was connected,
regarded as utterly unjust. The Democratic party made
vigorous use of tlhe charge everywhere. The whole
foundation of it, doubtless, was the fact which Mr. Lincoln states, that, whenever the Democrats tried to get
him " to vote tlhat the war had been righteously begunl,"
he would not do it. He showed, in fact, on this point,
the same clearlness and directness, the same keen eye for
the important point in a controversy, and the same tenacity in holding it fast, and thwar-ting his opponent's
utmost efforts to obscure it and cover it up, to draw
attention to other points and raise false issues, which
were the maiked characteristics of his rieat controversy
with Judge Douglas at a subsequent period of their political history. It is always popular, because it always
seems patriotic, to stand by the country when engaged in
war-and the people are not invariably disposed to judge
leniently of efforts to prove their country in the wrong as
against any foreign power. In this instance, Mr. Lincoln
saw that the strength of the position of the Administration
before the people, in reference to the beginning of the war,
was in the point, which they lost no opportunity of reiterating, viz.: that Mexico had shed the blood of our citizens
on our own.soil. This position he believed to be false,
and he accordingly attacked it in a series of resolutions
requesting the President to give the House information