After he got thru, Linkin called upon me. I jest hauled up my old hickery and laid it on the tabil, an then puttin my elbows on the tabil to rest myself, I began. Ses I, "Kernel, I feel kinder scary to giv my opinion rite here, after sech a display of larnin an eloquince; but," ses I, "as I understand the questshin, it is this: We've been fightin to restore the Union, an we've failed. Now, what is the cause of the failure?" Ses I, "Is that it, Kernel?" Ses he, "Yes, Majer; that's it, exactly." "Wal," ses I, "I allers want to get on the track afore I start, an then I kin tell purty nigh where I will fetch up. Now," ses I, "Kernel, I want to ask you a questshin: _Did you ever try to split a peperage log!_" "No," ses he, "Majer, I never did. Nobody would be sech a consarned fool as to try an split a peperage log." "Wal," ses I, "Kernel, suppose some feller should cum to you an tell you that he had been a year an a half tryin to split a peperage log, an couldn't do it, that he had failed, an wanted you to tell him what to do, what would you say to him?"--"Say to him!--why, I should tell him he might jest as well whistle at the log as to try to split it--that it warn't in the natur of sech knotty, nerly, cross-grained timber to split; in other words, that he was tryin to do an onpossibul thing." "Now," ses I, "Kernel, that's jest my idee about tryin to save this Union by fightin! You're tryin to do an onpossibul thing. After a year an a half of fightin, you all acknowledge that you have failed, an all the Cabynet is wonderin why you have failed. Now, it ain't no wonder to me. You have failed jest because, in the very natur of things, what you are tryin to do can't be done in that way. You're takin the rong way to do it."