organization, until probably at no distant day Governor Pierpont will be acknowledged as the Governor of Virginia at Richmond. When this takes place, the State will be necessarily a free State, under a constitution prohibiting slavery. The loyal people of Florida are ready to take the same course which Governor Pierpont proposes to take in Virginia; and the same is true of the loyal people of Louisiana to a great extent. It will be found, doubtless, as the authority of the Union is re-established in other States included by the proclamation, that the same sentiments will prevail; so that it will be quite easy for the national government, if the President feels so disposed, to secure the recognition of the proclamation, and the permanent establishment of its policy, through the action of the people of the several States affected by it. "In this way the great ends to be accomplished can be most certainly reached. My own efforts are constantly directed to their attainment, and I never admit in conversation or otherwise the possibility that the rebel States can _cease_ to be _rebel States_ and _become loyal_ members of the Union except through the recognition of the condition created by the proclamation, by the establishment of free institutions under slavery-prohibiting constitutions. I not only labor for these ends, but hope quite sanguinely that they will be secured. "The public sentiment of the country has undergone a great change in reference to slavery. Strong emancipation parties exist in every slave State not affected by the proclamation, and a general conviction prevails that slavery cannot long survive the restoration of the republic. The proclamation, and such recognition of it as I have mentioned, will have finished it in the proclamation States. In the other States the people will finish it by their own action. I do not care to sketch the picture of the great and powerful nation which will then exhibit its strength in America. Your own foresight must have anticipated all I could say.