the force you have.

A. LINCOLN.




HISTORY OF CONSPIRACY OF REBELLION

MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.

MAY 16, 1862

TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:

The insurrection which is yet existing in the United States and aims
at the overthrow of the Federal Constitution and the Union, was
clandestinely prepared during the Winter of 1860 and 1861, and
assumed an open organization in the form of a treasonable provisional
government at Montgomery, in Alabama on the 18th day of February,
1861. On the 12th day of April, 1861, the insurgents committed the
flagrant act of civil war by the bombardment and the capture of Fort
Sumter, Which cut off the hope of immediate conciliation.
Immediately afterward all the roads and avenues to this city were
obstructed, and the capital was put into the condition of a siege.
The mails in every direction were stopped and the lines of telegraph
cut off by the insurgents, and military and naval forces which had
been called out by the government for the defense of Washington were
prevented from reaching the city by organized and combined
treasonable resistance in the State of Maryland. There was no