upon the future action of the men from whom it emanates, and that of their constituents.  It stands to-day where the Declaration of Independence stood for the five years that followed its promulgation, waiting for its place in human annals to be prepared for it by its supporters.  Of what worth would the Declaration of Independence be now, had it not been for Trenton and Princeton, Saratoga and Yorktown?  Of no worth at all; and its authors would be looked upon as a band of sentimental political babblers, who could enunciate truths which neither they nor their countrymen had the capacity to uphold and practically to demonstrate.  But the Declaration of Independence is one of the most immortal of papers because it proved a grand success; and it was successful because the men who put it forth were fully competent to the grand work with the performance of which they were charged.  It is for Mr. Lincoln himself to say whether the Proclamation of September 22, 1861, shall take rank with the Declaration of July 4, 1776, or with those evidences of flagrant failure that have become so common since 1789,—­with the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, and Mexican Constitutions.  That it is the people’s duty to support the President is said by almost all men; but is it not equally the duty of the President to support the people?  And have they not supported him,—­supported him with men, with money, with the surrender of the enjoyment of some of their dearest rights, with their full confidence, with good wishes and better deeds, and with all the rest of the numerous moral and material means of waging war vigorously and triumphantly?  And if they have done and are doing all this, who will be to blame, if the enemy shall accomplish their purpose?

The President and his immediate associates are placed so high by their talents and their positions that they must be supposed open to the love of fame, and to desire honorable mention in their country’s annals, especially as they have to do with matters of such transcendent importance, greater even than those that absorbed the attention of Washington and Hamilton, of Jefferson and Madison, of Jackson and Livingston.  It is for themselves to decide what shall be said of them hereafter, and through all future time,—­whether they shall be blessed or banned, cursed or canonized.  The judgment that shall be passed upon them and their work will be given according to the result, and from it there can be no appeal.  The Portuguese have a well-known proverb, that “the way to hell is paved with good intentions;” but it is not the laborers on that broad and crowded highway who gain honorable immortality.  The decisions of posterity are not made with reference to men’s motives and intentions, but upon their deeds.  With posterity, success is the proper proof of merit, when nothing necessary to its winning is denied to the players in the world’s great games.  Richmond is worshipped, and Richard detested, not because the former was good and great, and the latter