Before long this especial explosion spent its force, and thereafter very fortunately the question smouldered during the rest of Mr. Lincoln's lifetime, and only burst forth into fierce flame immediately after his death, when it became more practical and urgent as a problem of the actually present time. The last words, however, which he spoke in public, dealt with the matter. It was on the evening of April 11, and he was addressing in Washington a great concourse of citizens who had gathered to congratulate him upon the brilliant military successes, then just achieved, which insured the immediate downfall of the Confederacy. In language as noteworthy for moderation as that of his assailants had been for extravagance, he then reviewed his course concerning reconstruction and gave his reasons for still believing that he had acted for the best. Admitting that much might justly be said against the reorganized government of Louisiana, he explained why he thought that nevertheless it should not be rejected. Concede, he said, that it is to what it should be only what the egg is to the fowl, "we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it." He conceived that the purpose of the people might be fairly stated to be the restoration of the proper practical relations between the seceded States and the Union, and he therefore argued that the question properly took this shape: Whether Louisiana could "be brought into proper practical relation with the Union _sooner_ by _sustaining_ or by _discarding_ her new state government."[59]