9 ieiit for them not to know it ; yet iny moral natnre makes it utterly impossible for me thus to deal with this wicked thing. I call it treason, and its authors traitors —^^just wliat it is, and just what they are. This is my diction for every man, whether Northern or Southern, Mdio knowingly and willfully puts himself in alliance with this wicked rebellion. I began the diction in the outset, and I expect to continue it to the end. I utterly scorn those political exigencies and sinister ends, by which this fact is sought to be ignored. I can have no sympathy with parties, platforms, candidates, or speakers, that fail to recognize this fact. This, let me tell you, is the vital fact in the question. Take it out ; and the whole character of the struffffle is at once changed. Turning then, in the second place, to the Government, you have an effort of established authority to suppress an unhallowed rebellion. Such it was in the commencement, and such it continues to be. Some, I know, charge the Administration with adding other purposes to this war, especially the abolition of slavery ; but the charge is not true. Mr. Lincoln jn his treatment of the slavery question has repeatedly said, that as President invested with war-powers, he should deal with slavery solely and only in its relation to the question of victory and the preservation of the Union. He may not have always been wise, or he may have been wise ; but his policy and the policy of the Grovernment are perfectly clear. Take his own words : ^ My enemies pretend I am carrying on this war for the sole purpose of abolition. So long as I am President, it shall be carried on for the sole purpose of restoring the Union.''' All his acts agree with this statement. The distinct and positive mission of this Government —the thing whicJi it has been, and is still trying to do— is to put down this rebellion. To state its position differently, is to utter a glaring untruth. Let the Rebels lay down their arms ; let them do what every good citizen is bound to do, and will do ; let them obey the laws of the land ; and the fighting will come to an end at once, and all the questions to be adjusted thereafter, including that of slavery, will be remitted to the Courts of law and the legislation of Congress. But so long as the rebels continue to fight, the Govern-
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