The White House
As I study the office wall map of the war zones I am afflicted by partial blindness. The name Fredericksburg blurs. I hear myself saying: I have made a covent to free the slaves. I hear General McClellan say: “We must declare a truce to bury our dead.” Alexandria, Fairfax, Sharpsburg, Harper’s Ferry, Spotsylvania. That peculiar blindness continues, focuses now on faces I have loved, her face, the face of a friend in Springfield, the stairway leading to my law office, my children playing on the street in front of my home, riding in their little red wagon...
I am not a cartographer of war; however I surpass some of my gallant military officers. Their logistics have led to useless slaughter. Hellish bungling, I call it. But that blindness intrudes: I am surveying a piece of property near Salem, it seems.
What if this was a map of the entire world? What if I were in command? What then?
I hear my mother speak to me:
“Abe, shall we go out now and plant those squash seeds?”
W.H.
How are we to establish labor relations in the North and in the South? I am glad to see that a system of labor prevails under which laborers can strike when they want to, where they are not obliged to work under all circumstances, and are not tied down and obliged to labor whether you pay them or not! I like the system which lets a man quit when he wants to, and wish it might prevail everywhere. In mill and cottonfield there has to be a leveling, hours, pay, conditions. We have to regulate a work week.