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.

STAT E PAPERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

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or execution is mine. To General Grant, his skilful offiicelr, anrd,brave
men, all belongs. The gallant navy stood ready, but was not ill re.:lch to
take active part. By these recent successes, the reinlauguration of the
national authlority-reconstruction-which has had a large share of
thought from the first, is pressed much more closely upon our attentio(n.
It is fraught with great difficulty. Unlike a case of war betvwen iltdependent nations, there i no authorized organ for u8 to treat with-no one
man has authority to give up the rebellion for any other man. We
simply must begin with and mould from disorganized and discordant elemnents. Nor is it a small additional embarrassment that we, the loyal
people, differ among ourselves as to the mode, manner, and measure of reconstruction. As a general rule, I abstain from reading the reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to whicl I cannot
properly offer an answer. In spite of this precaution, however, it comes to
my knowledge that I am much censured for some supposed agency in setting
up and seeking to sustain the new State Government of Louisiana. In this I
have done just so much and no more than the public knows. In the Annual
Message of December, 1863, and the accompanying proclamation, I preo
3ented a plan of reconstruction, as the phrase goes, which I promised, if
adopted by any State, would be acceptable to and sustained by the Executive Government of the nation. I distinctly stated that this was
no)t the only plan which might possibly be acceptable, and I also distinctly protested that the Executive claimed no right to say when or
wlether members should be admitted to seats in Congress from such
States. This plan was in advance submitted to the then Cabinet, and
approved by every member of it. One of them suggested that I slhould
then and in that connection apply the Emancipation Proclamnation to the
theretofore excepted parts of Virginia and Louisiana; that I should drop
the suggestion about apprenticeship for freed people, and that I should
omit the protest against my own power in regard tp the admission of
members of Congress. But even lie approved every part and parcel of
the plan which has since been employed or touched by the action of
Louisiana. The new Constitution of Louisiana, declaring emancipation
for the whole State, practically applies the proclamation to the part previously excepted. It does not adopt apprenticeship for freed people, and
is silent, as it could not well be otherwise, about the admission of members to Congress. So that, as it applied to Louisiana, every member of
the Cabinet fully approved the plan. The message went to Congress,
and I received many commendations of the plan, written and verbal, and
not a single objection to it from any professed emancipationist came to
my knowledge until after the news reached Washington that the people
of Louisiana had begun to move in accordance with it. From about
July, 1862, I had corresponded with different persons supposed to be interested in seeking a reconstruction of a State Government for Louisiana.
When the message of 1863,with the plan before mentioned, reached New
Orleans, General Banks wrote me that he w:s confident that the people,