To the complaint that Union forces occupying New Orleans had interfered with the relations between master and slave, Lincoln retorted that there was no one to blame but those who continued to resist the authority of the government. The solution, he said, “does not lie in rounding the rough angles of the war, but in removing the necessity for the war.” He asked: “What would you do in my position? Would you drop the war where it is? Would you deal lighter blows rather than heavier ones? Would you give up the contest,
