The extreme Democrats of the North regarded the slave as more sacred than life. It was no harm to kill the master--to burn his house, to ravage his fields--but you must not free his slave. If in war a nation has the right to take the property of its citizens--of its friends--certainly it has the right to take the property of those it has the right to kill. Lincoln was wise enough to know that war is governed by the laws of war, and that during the conflict constitutions are silent. All that he could do he did in the interests of peace. He offered to execute every law--including the most infamous of all--to buy the slaves in the border States--to establish gradual, compensated emancipation; but the South would not hear. Then he confiscated the property of rebels--treated the slaves as contraband of war, used them to put down the Rebellion, armed them and clothed them in the uniform of the Republic--was in favor of making them citizens and allowing them to stand on an equality with their white brethren under the flag of the Nation. During these years Lincoln moved with events, and every step he took has been justified by the considerate judgment of mankind. VIII. LINCOLN not only watched the war, but kept his hand on the political pulse. In 1863 a tide set in against the administration. A Republican meeting was to be held in Springfield, Illinois, and Lincoln wrote a letter to be read at this convention. It was in his happiest vein. It was a perfect defence of his administration, including the Proclamation of Emancipation. Among other things he said: "But the proclamation, as law, either is valid or it is not valid. If it is not valid it needs no retraction, but if it is valid it cannot be retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life." To the Northern Democrats who said they would not fight for negroes, Lincoln replied: "Some of them seem willing to fight for you--but no matter." Of negro soldiers: "But negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do anything for us if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us they must be prompted by the strongest motive--even the promise of freedom. And the promise, being made, must be kept." There is one line in this letter that will give it immortality: "The Father of waters again goes unvexed to the sea." This line is worthy of Shakespeare. Another: "Among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet." He draws a comparison between the white men against us and the black men for us: "And then there will be some black men who can remember that with silent tongue and clenched teeth and steady eye and well-poised bayonet they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while I fear there will be some white ones unable to forget that with malignant heart and deceitful speech they strove to hinder it."