Thus events were creeping along toward a true statement of the great problem, without which it could never be solved, when Horace Greeley, through the columns of his _Tribune_, addressed an open letter to the President (August 19), entitling it "The Prayer of Twenty Millions." It exhorted Mr. Lincoln, not to general emancipation, but to such an execution of the existing laws as would free immense numbers of slaves belonging to men in arms against the Government. It was impassioned and powerful; a single passage will show its character: "On the face of this wide earth, Mr. President, there is not one disinterested, determined, intelligent champion of the Union cause who does not feel that all attempts to put down the rebellion, and at the same time uphold its exciting cause, are preposterous and futile; that the rebellion, if crushed out to-morrow, would be renewed within a year if slavery were left in full vigor; that army officers who remain to this day devoted to slavery can at best be but half-way loyal to the Union; and that every hour of deference to slavery is an hour of added and deepened peril to the Union." Any one less a genius than Mr. Lincoln would have found it difficult to answer Mr. Greeley at all, and his answer was not one in the sense of being a refutation, but it exhibited his view of the question, and is perhaps as fine a piece of literature as was ever penned by any one in an official capacity: "If there be perceptible in it [Mr. Greeley's letter] an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend whose heart I have always supposed to be right.... As to the policy I 'seem to be pursuing,' as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.... My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. I have here stated my purpose according to my views of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free." [Illustration: JAMES G. BIRNEY.] [Illustration: THE SALE OF A SLAVE.]