You feel as I do about the horror of war, and above all the horrors of civil war.

You do not know whether the people will support you.

You grant that there is some justice in the contention of the South, and you claim for your own case only a balance of truth.

You admit that to coerce the millions of the South back into the Union is a kind of task which has never been performed in the world before and one which the wise of all ages have pronounced impossible.
And yet, for the sake of a narrow point, you are ready, if the need arises, to embark on a war which must be bloody and long, which must stir the deeps of bitterness, and which in all likelihood will achieve nothing.

Are you entirely resolved ?" Lincoln's sad eyes rested on the other.