There was serious danger of a division of popular sentiment in the North growing out of the Slavery question; there was grave apprehension of foreign intervention from the arrest of Mason and Slidell.

The war was in its eighth month; and, strong and energetic as the Northern people felt, it cannot be denied that a confidence in ultimate triumph had become dangerously developed throughout the South.
THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE, 1861.
The message of Mr.Lincoln dealt with the situation in perfect candor.

He did not attempt to withhold any thing or to color any thing.

He frankly acknowledged that "our intercourse with foreign nations had been attended with profound solicitude." He recognized that "a nation which endured factious domestic division is exposed to disrespect abroad; and one party, if not both, is sure, sooner or later, to invoke foreign intervention." With his peculiar power of condensing a severe expression, he said that "the disloyal citizens of the United States have offered the ruin of our country in return for the aid and comfort which they have invoked abroad." This offer was made on the presumption that some commercial or substantial gain would accrue to other nations from the destruction of the Republic; but Mr.Lincoln believed with confidence that "foreign governments would not in the end fail to perceive that one strong nation promises more durable peace, and a more extensive, valuable, and reliable commerce, than can the same nation broken into hostile fragments," and for this reason he believed that the rebel leaders had received from abroad "less patronage and encouragement than they probably expected." The President dwelt with satisfaction upon the condition of the Border States, concerning whose course he had constantly exhibited the profoundest solicitude.

He now informed Congress that "noble little Delaware led off right, from the first," and that Maryland, which had been "made to seem against the Union," had given "seven regiments to the loyal cause, and none to the enemy, and her people, at a regular election, have sustained the Union by a larger majority and a larger aggregate vote than they ever before gave to any candidate on any question." Kentucky, concerning which his anxiety had been deepest, was now decidedly, and, as he thought, "unchangeably, ranged on the side of the Union." Missouri he announced as comparatively quiet, and he did not believe she could be again overrun by the insurrectionists.