simple order of the War Department to draft enough men to fill our skeleton regiments would be more convincing as to our national perpetuity than an humble pardon to Jeff. Davis and all his misled host.

The only government now needed or deserved by the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi now exists in Grant's army. It needs simply enough privates to fill its ranks; all else will follow in due season. This army has its well-defined code of laws and practice, and can adapt itself to the wants and necessities of a city, the country, the rivers, the sea; indeed, to all parts of this land. It better subserves the interest and policy of the General Government, and the people prefer it to any weak or servile combination that would at once, from force of habit, revive and perpetuate local prejudices and passions. The people of this country have forfeited all right to a voice in the councils of the nation. They know it and feel it, and in after years they will be the better citizens from the dear-bought experience of the present crisis. Let them learn now, and learn it well, that good citizens must obey as well as command. Obedience to law-absolute; yea, even abject-is the lesson that this war, under Providence, will teach the free and enlightened American citizen; as a nation we will be the better for it. I never have apprehended foreign interference in our family quarrel. Of course governments founded on a different, and it may be antagonistic, principle with ours, would naturally feel a pleasure at our complications, but in the end England and France will join with us in jubilations in the triumph of a constitutional government over faction; even now the English manifest this.

I do not profess to understand Napoleon's design in Mexico, but I do not see that his taking military possession of Mexico concerns us. We have as much territory as we want. The Mexicans have failed in self-government, and it was a question to what nation she would fall a prey. That is solved, and I don't see that we are damaged. We have the finest part of the North American continent, all we can people and take care of, and if we can suppress rebellion in our land and compose the strife generated by it, we will have people, resources, and wealth which, if well combined, can defy interference from any and every quarter.

I therefore hope the Government of the United States will continue as heretofore in collecting in well-organized armies the physical strength of the nation; apply it as heretofore in asserting the national authority, persevering without relaxation to the end. This, whether near or far off, is not for us to say, but, fortunately, we have no choice. We must succeed; no other choice is left us but degradation. The South must be ruled or will rule. We must conquer them ourselves or be conquered. There is no middle course. They ask and will have nothing else, and all the talk of compromise is bosh, for we know they would even now scorn the offer. I wish the war could have been deferred for twenty years, till the superabundant population of the North should flow in and replace the losses sustained by war, but this could not be, and we are forced to take things as they arise.

All therefore I can now venture to advise is the pushing the draft to its maximum, fill the present regiments to as large a standard as possible, and push the war, pure and simple.

Great attention should be paid to the discipline of our armies, for on them will be founded the future stability of our Government. The cost of the war is of course to be considered, but finances will