... What would you do in
my position? Would you drop the war where it is? Or would you prosecute
it in future with elder-stalk squirts charged with rose-water? Would you
deal lighter blows rather than heavier ones? Would you give up the
contest, leaving any available means unapplied? I am in no boastful
mood. I shall not do more than I can, and I shall do all I can, to save
the government, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal
inclination. I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with is too vast
for malicious dealing."
The President could afford to overlook the misrepresentations and
invective of the professedly opposition newspapers, but he had also to
meet the over-zeal of influential Republican editors of strong
antislavery bias. Horace Greeley printed, in the New York "Tribune" of
August 20, a long "open letter" ostentatiously addressed to Mr. Lincoln,
full of unjust censure all based on the general accusation that the
President and many army officers as well, were neglecting their duty
under pro-slavery influences and sentiments. The open letter which Mr.
Lincoln wrote in reply is remarkable not alone for the skill with which
it separated the true from the false issue of the moment, but also for
the equipoise and dignity with which it maintained his authority as
moral arbiter between the contending factions.
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