In closing he said that it was with the deepest regret that he had used the war power; but "in defense of the government, forced upon him, he could but perform this duty or surrender the existence of the government." Compromise would have been useless, for "no popular government can long survive a marked precedent that those who carry an election can only save the government from immediate destruction by giving up the main point upon which the people gave the election." To those who would have had him compromise he explained that only the people themselves, not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions. He had no power to agree to divide the country which he had the duty to govern. "As a private citizen the executive could not have consented that these institutions shall perish; much less could he, in betrayal of so vast and so sacred a trust as these free people have confided to him. He felt that he had no moral right to shrink, nor even to count the chances of his own life in what might follow." The only direct request made in the message was that, to make "this contest a short and decisive one," Congress would "place at the control of the government for the work at least 400,000 men, and $400,000,000. That number of men is about one tenth of those of proper ages within the regions where apparently all are willing to engage, and the sum is less than a twenty-third part of the money value owned by the men who seem ready to devote the whole." The message was well received by the people, as it deserved to be.