It forces us to ask, _Is there in all Republics this inherent and fatal weakness ?_ Must a government of necessity be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence ?" The President was severe upon Virginia and Virginians.

He had made earnest effort to save the State from joining the Rebellion.

He had held conferences with her leading men, and had gone so far on the 13th of April as to address a communication, for public use in Virginia, to the State convention then in session at Richmond, in answer to a resolution of the convention asking him to define the policy he intended to pursue in regard to the Confederate States.
In this he re-asserted the position assumed in his Inaugural, and added that "if, as now appears to be true, an unprovoked assault has been made on Fort Sumter, I shall hold myself at liberty to repossess it if I can, and the like places which had been seized before the government was devolved upon me.

I shall, to the best of my ability, repel force by force." This letter was used to inflame public sentiment in Virginia, and to hurl the State into Secession through the agency of a Convention elected to maintain the Union.

Mr.Lincoln afterwards believed that the letter had been obtained from him under disingenuous pretenses and for the express purpose of using it, as it was used, against the Union and in favor of the Confederacy.
PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S FIRST MESSAGE.
The President's resentment towards those who had thus, as he thought, broken faith with him is visible in his message.