Problems

I.      How not to do it. – Seeming to resist the Rebellion, and yet in really preparing for its final recognition and legitimation.

II.    How to do it and yet not do it. – Putting down the Rebellion but preserving and perpetuating its cause.

III.    How to do it softly and sweetly. – By pressure, negotiation, and compromise, without fighting or hurting anybody, thus making yourself popular among our brethren of the South with first-rate claims upon their suffrages when the good old domination of Slavery over Freedom shall be happily restored.

IV.    How to do it in dead earnest. – Crushing out the Rebellion with fire, sword, and hemp, while by the very fact, we strike its black cause and origin dead forever.

Of these four problems, the last is the one which the American people seem to be now engaged in working out, no matter how much or how vehemently Slavery-loving Generals and politicians may be afflicted thereat. –{N. Y. Tribune.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 1, 1862, p. 1