"
"But, Mr. President," his friend objected, "General McClellan is in
favor of crushing out this rebellion by force. He will be the Chicago
candidate."
"Sir, the slightest knowledge of arithmetic will prove to any man that
the rebel armies cannot be destroyed by Democratic strategy. It would
sacrifice all the white men of the North to do it. There are now in the
service of the United States nearly one hundred and fifty thousand
able-bodied colored men, most of them under arms, defending and
acquiring Union territory. The Democratic strategy demands that these
forces be disbanded, and that the masters be conciliated by restoring
them to slavery.... You cannot conciliate the South if you guarantee to
them ultimate success; and the experience of the present war proves
their successes inevitable if you fling the compulsory labor of millions
of black men into their side of the scale.... Abandon all the posts now
garrisoned by black men, take one hundred and fifty thousand men from
our side and put them in the battle-field or corn-field against us, and
we would be compelled to abandon the war in three weeks.... My enemies
pretend I am now 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.
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