If the war were ended to-day and the Union restored I do not see that the condition of your State would be at all bettered. On the contrary, the thousands of your people who are in the rebel armies, being disbanded and returning to Missouri lawless vagrants, without the means of livelihood or the inclination to work, would simply re-enforce the small bands of bushwhackers and outlaws which now infest the State. The troops, too, now stationed in Missouri would be disbanded by a return of peace, and the people of the State would at last be brought face to face with this question and without the advantages which they now possess. This question must some day be met and settled by the people themselves. Is there likely to be a more favorable season than now? On the contrary, does not every day lost increase the difficulty? Is it likely that the people will be more willing or more able in one year or ten years to resume the performance of their civil duties than they are to-day? If they be more willing, will they have the same aid then that they can have now in the undertaking? To resume the functions of civil government in Missouri will undoubtedly at the outset be a work full of labor and sacrifice, and will require unusual fortitude and determination on the part of the people, but as it is a work which must be done sooner or later, and as there can never, to human foresight, be a better opportunity for that purpose than the present, surely now is the time to do it.

Some of your people object that they have no organizations and wish me to issue orders to assist them in organizing but such orders have again and again been issued without producing the effect. General or special orders from military commanders can never infuse into the people what alone is needed-and without which nothing can be effected-an earnest, resolute determination to act for themselves to resume their manhood and their civil privileges, and to put down the outlaws who obstruct the execution of the laws and deprecate upon the people. Any organization for such a purpose to be at all effectual in fact to possess any vitality whatever, must originate with the people themselves and be controlled by them. It is useless to talk of the people co-operating with the military in carrying on a war of extermination against guerrillas and outlaws or in efforts to resume control of the civil administration of your State. It is the military who should co-operate with and aid the people, not the people the military. This distinction may not be obvious at first glance, but it is a distinction vital to success. Since certain orders, issued by me in 1861 for the of approval by public speakers in this city and alluded to with favor in personal interviews by many of your citizens, it may not be improper for me to state that it was the same earnest action of the people which is now proposed for the preservation of peace and the execution of civil law which I undertook to secure in North Missouri in 1861 by the orders referred to. These orders were suspended and countermanded by higher authority than mine. At the time a majority of the people of Missouri were not prepared for what was then considered an extreme measure. I believed then that the orders issued would force such action as would lead to peace in the absence of organized armies of the enemy. I have seen no reason since to change that opinion but find you to-day far better prepared for the extremists measures to secure peace in the State than you were then for orders which in these days would be considered anything but radical.

If these orders be approved, why not adopt now the popular action which they then recommended? The people of Missouri are able to

68 R R-VOL XLVIII, PT I