“I can speak for myself only, Mr. President. I am of Southern birth and breeding. My sympathies lie entirely with the South. I feel that they were right on every issue between them and the abolitionists and radicals of the North. I feel that they had just cause to secede from the compact formed by the states, and to set up a government of their own which should be in accord with their views and policies. I feel that the attempt to coerce them was unjust and tyrannical. I feel that the war, on the part of the North, has been and is an awful mistake, criminal in many of its aspects. Feeling that way, I have done all that lay in my power, from my home in the North, openly, and I believe honorably, to oppose the war, and to weaken the power of your administration. I speak frankly because you have asked me for my views.”
“That’s right; that’s right. That’s what I want to know. We must be honest with each other. Now, don’t you think the Union, as it was, was a splendid aggregation of states?”
“Yes, Mr. Lincoln, I do.”
“And don’t you think the Union, restored as it was, would be a still more splendid aggregation of states?”
“I do, if the causes of war were removed.”
“Exactly! We are trying to remove them. You and your friends of the South are trying to retain them. If their armies prevail in this struggle, the situation is hopeless. Nothing is settled. The Union is shattered. The future is black with trouble. If our armies prevail in this struggle, all the issues that led to the war become dead issues. The Union will be restored as it was. The future will be large with promise. I can see, so far as my vision reaches, but one end that will bring permanent peace and happiness. We must conquer the armies of the South; we must do it. The life of the Union, for which our fathers fought, depends on it. There, I’ve said a good deal. I don’t know that I’ve made myself clear. I don’t get a chance to talk to you copperheads very often. I take it when I can get it.”
There was nothing flippant or sarcastic in his tone or manner. He was frank and plain, but in deadly earnest. It required no brilliancy of comprehension to discover that. Rhett Bannister saw it and acknowledged it. He saw more. He saw that this man grasped the situation as no man had ever grasped it before. That in his heart the Union was the one thing of prime importance, and that his mind and soul and body were tense with the desire and effort to save the Union. But was he right? Was he right? For, while Bannister could not now but acknowledge the sincerity and skill of the man who was talking to him, he was not yet ready to yield his own judgment.
“I do not think you put yourself in the place of the men of the South,” he replied, “and look at the matter through their eyes. Consider for a moment. You deny them the right to live in new territory of the United States in the same manner in which they and their fathers, for generations back, have lived in their Southern homes. Is that just? They resent that as an indignity. You seek to compel them by force of arms to accept this humiliating situation. They resist. Why should they not? Finally, you yourself issue a proclamation depriving them, so far as lies in your power, of their right to own slaves. Then you demand that they lay down their arms in order to save the Union. Do you think they can greatly care whether such a Union as that is saved or broken?”
[Lincoln] leaned over and [laid his hand on Bannister’s knee.]