MCCLELLAN,
"Major-General Commanding.
"His Excellency A. LINCOLN, President."
July 12, 1862, Senators and Representatives of the Border Slave-holding
States, having been specially invited to the White House for the
purpose, were addressed by President Lincoln, as follows:
"GENTLEMEN:--After the adjournment of Congress, now near, I shall have
no opportunity of seeing you for several months. Believing that you of
the Border States hold more power for good than any other equal number
of members, I feel it a duty which I cannot justifiably waive, to make
this appeal to you.
"I intend no reproach or complaint when I assure you that, in my
opinion, if you all had voted for the Resolution in the Gradual
Emancipation Message of last March, the War would now be substantially
ended. And the plan therein proposed is yet one of the most potent and
swift means of ending it. Let the States which are in Rebellion see
definitely and certainly that in no event will the States you represent
ever join their proposed Confederacy, and they cannot much longer
maintain the contest.
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