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I have ordered the Navy to blockade all Southern ports of industry. This move is done in accordance with General Scott's Anaconda Plan. The South's lifeblood is the cotton crop, we must cut off that lifeline to weaken their fighting resolve and to demonstrate to the rest of the world the folly of their actions. More and more men volunteer for service in the new Union Army every passing day. These men will be merged with the remaining members of our regular army to form a fighting force capable of putting down the rebellion. I have trust in my cabinet and the commanding officers of this new army that they will act with rational minds and aggressive hearts to bring our Southern states back into the fold. This administration will honor my birth state of Kentucky's wishes and acknowledge its neutrality, but any Kentuckian wishing to join the Union Army will not be turned down.

Many a time has our great democracy has been called an experiment. Eighty-five years have passed since the start of our republic. Great men of the past founded our government, and great men of the past have successfully kept it afloat through crisis after crisis. The task before us now is to show that our government to demonstrate to the world that those who carry fair elections can also suppress rebellions; that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets, and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided there can be no successful appeal back to bullets. Such will be a great lesson. Teaching men that what they can not take by an election neither can they take it by a war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war.

And having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God and go forward without fear and with manly hearts.

Abraham Lincoln
President of the United States