aroused. In an aggregate greater than at any previous election in Ohio, Brough received a majority from the citizens of 61,920, and from the soldiers who were permitted by law to vote in the field, 39,179, a total of over 101,000. It was the expression of an overwhelming and just opinion in favor of the government and a continuance of the war.2 While 185,000 citizens and 2200 soldiers gave their voices for Vallandigham, it is gratifying to believe that a large portion of them did not sympathize with his extreme and uncompromising opposition to the conduct of the war.

1 The election took place October 13.

2 As the two parties did not exactly join issue, each evading to some extent the presentation of the other, it is difficult to say what was the pronouncement of the people of Ohio on arbitrary arrests and "drum-head court-martials" (a favorite expression of the Democrats). If I may trust my own memory, which is vivid of this canvass (I was living in Ohio at the time), supported as it is by a fair inference from the contemporary evidence, I can assert that the position of the mass of those who voted for Brough was that of acquiescence in this arbitrary exercise of authority, being brought to it by their deep trust in Lincoln, which was overmastering in the autumn of 1863. Édouard Laboulaye, who had some sort of the same discernment possessed by De Tocqueville, in a course of lectures at the Collége de France in 1864 said: “L'Amérique, malgré la guerre, a conservé la liberté. Je sais que l'on dit le contraire; mais si vous lisiez les journeaux américains, si vous voyiez la façon dont le président des États-Unis, M. Abraham Lincoln, est traité, vous seriez vite édifié sur ce qu'est en Amérique cette prétendue compression de la liberté. . . . L'Amérique est assez forte pour n'avoir pas peur de la liberté. Quant au despotisme, les journeaux américains se sont amusés de nos terreurs européennes; il leur est difficile de prendre au sérieux Abraham 1er, empereur des Américains. M. Abraham Lincoln ne sera certainement pas l'empereur de l'Amérique. On lui a donné un nom que l'histoire ratifiera; ce sera l'honnête Abraham, le citoyen qui n'a pas désespéré de la patrie, le magistrat qui a défendu énergiquement la cause de la liberté et de l'Union; ce titre lui suffit, et à vrai dire il est plus beau que celui de César." -- Laboulaye, Histoire des États-Unis, t. iii. p. 50. Any one who has sat at the feet of Laboulaye may easily conjure up the animation and emphasis that he would give to these words.

we re

J. R. Lowell wrote in the North American Review, Jan., 1864, p. 257: "It is a harmless pleasantry to call Mr. Lincoln Abraham the First,' member when a similar title was applied to President Jackson; and it will not be easy, we suspect, to persuade a people who have more liberty than they know what to do with, that they are the victims of despotic tyranny."

On the same day as the election in Ohio, Curtin, one of the celebrated war governors, was re-elected governor of Pennsylvania by a good majority. The canvass was notable in that General McClellan, much to the disappointment of Curtin, identified himself with the Democratic party by writing a public letter in support of its candidate. In Indiana, county officers were chosen, in Iowa there was a state election: in both States the Union party was successful.

New York voted in November, and the Union candidate for Secretary of State was elected by a majority of 29,000. The result was regarded as a rebuke to Governor Seymour. "As to Massachusetts," wrote Motley from Vienna, "of course I should as soon have thought of the sun's forgetting to rise as of her joining the pro-slavery Copperheads." This Commonwealth chose Andrew again for governor by 41,000 majority. All the Northern States but New Jersey voted with the Union party, which carried also Maryland, Kentucky, and Delaware. Motley, with a remarkable power in pointing a result, wrote: "The elections I consider of far more consequence than the battles; or, rather, the success of the anti-slavery party and its steady increasing strength make it a mathematical certainty that, however the tide of battle may ebb and flow with varying results, the progress of the war is steadily in one direction. The peculiar institution will be washed away, and with it the only possible dissolvent of the Union." 2

It is interesting to note, in two important particulars, the action of the President, whose concern in regard to the political campaign was second only to that touching the military

1 Nov. 17, Letters, vol. ii. p. 143.

2 Ibid. My authorities are the files of the Columbus (Ohio) Crisis, N. Y. Tribune and World, especially the Crisis of July 1, 8, 15, 22, Aug. 5, 19, 26, Sept. 2, 9. 16, Oct. 7; the Tribune, Sept. 17, 30, Oct. 3, 15; World, Sept. 15, 29, Oct. 14; Life of Vallandigham by his brother; Morse's Lincoln, vol. ii.; Nicolay and Hay, vol. vii.; Tribune Almanac; Appleton's Annual Cyclopædia, 1863; Julian, Political Recollections; Riddle, Recollections of War Times; John Sherman's Recollections, vol. i.; Greeley's American Conflict, vol. ii.; McPherson's Political Hist.

operations. Despite the issue which the Democrats in the Ohio canvass had brought to the front, he felt obliged, on account of many discharges of drafted men and deserters by judges apparently disposed to defeat the object of the Conscription Act, to suspend, by a proclamation of September 15, the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus throughout the United States. The cases in which the suspension should apply were stated in general terms. This proclamation was under the authority of the Act of Congress of March 3, 1863,1 and referred to it, while the gist and manner of the edict were suggested by Secretary Chase, the best lawyer in the cabinet, who, unlike Seward and Stanton, brothers in the profession, did not believe that the laws should be silent in the midst of arms. This procedure differed from the exercise of arbitrary powers previously referred to; owing to the advice and insistence of Chase, it was regular, and it may receive our approval.2

Chase set down in his diary a pretty full account of the two cabinet meetings which considered this comprehensive suspension of the habeas corpus, but he neither asserts nor intimates that there was any expression of opinion whatever that it would be politic to withhold the proclamation until after the elections. In connection with this circumstance, it is an indication of public sentiment that the President deemed it prudent to defer a fresh call for troops until after the October States had voted. Four days thereafter, October 17, he issued a proclamation calling out 300,000 volunteers "for three years or the war, not, however, exceeding three years," while any deficiencies in the quotas of any State should be filled by a draft to commence January 5, 1864.3 His immediate action in the one case, and his waiting in the

1 See p. 236.

2 Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 406; Diary of Chase, MS.; Warden's Chase, pp. 543, 545, 554; N. Y. Tribune, World, Sept. 16. In the enumeration of offenders and offences there were two clauses open perhaps to abuse.

3 Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 425.

IV. - 27

other, taken in connection with the unmistakable drift of opinion for the past two years, showed that the people of the North were more ready now to applaud stretches of executive authority than to enlist for the war or even to hire mercenaries to fill the ranks.

During the summer and autumn the designs of the Emperor of the French, the progress of his conquest of Mexico, the steps taken towards the establishment of an imperial government for that country, the offer of the throne to Archduke Maximilian of Mexico caused considerable uneasiness in the country, and lessened materially the animosity against England, so apparent earlier in the year. Lowell, in a letter to Thomas Hughes, undoubtedly expressed the sentiment of the country. "Pray don't believe a word he [the American correspondent of the London Times] says about our longing to go to war with England," he wrote. “We are all as cross as terriers with your kind of neutrality, but the last thing we want is another war. If the rebel iron-clads are allowed to come out, there might be a change." When the iron-clads were stopped, there was a great feeling of relief, which began to develop into amity.

The friendly welcome of a Russian fleet of war vessels, which arrived in New York City in September; the enthusiastic reception by the people of the admiral and officers when offered the hospitalities of the city; the banquet given at the Astor House by the merchants and business men in their honor; the marked attention shown them by the Secretary of State on their visit to Washington,2 "to reflect the cordiality and friendship which the nation cherishes towards Russia": all these manifestations of gratitude to the one great power of Europe which had openly and persistently been our friend, added another element to the cheerfulness which prevailed in the closing months of 1863.3

1 Sept. 9, Lowell's Letters, vol. i. p. 333.

2 The President was ill.

3 N. Y. World, Sept. 26, Tribune, Oct. 2, 13; Harper's Magazine, Nov. 1863, p. 848; Dip. Corr., 1864, part iii. p. 279; Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 146. In

The circumstances under which the President sent his message to Congress, December 8, were far different from those existing at the corresponding time the year previous, when, on account of successive military defeats, all was gloom; and the days succeeding were not destined to be like those of 1862, when Congress had not fairly started on its work before the crushing disaster of Fredericksburg increased the dejection of those in authority and of the people at large. Yet the House of Representatives was not so friendly, politically, to the administration as the preceding one. It had been chosen for the most part during the Democratic reaction in the autumn of 1862, but by statutory rule it did not meet until the first Monday of December, 1863, an arrangement in a government of the people difficult to defend, inuring, however, to the benefit of the President in this case, as in the gloomy winter of 1862-63 it was well that he had at his back the strong majority of the House elected in 1860. The Houseof the Thirty-eighth Congress 1 had 102 Republicans and un-conditional Unionists, 75 Democrats, 9 Border State men.2 The election of the speaker furnished a measure of the partisan division; 101 members voted for Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, while 81 gave their voices for several different candidates: named by the opposition. The Senate was controlled decisively by the party of the administration: 36 were Republicans and unconditional Unionists, 9 were Democrats, and 5 conditional Unionists.8

The President began his message: "Another year of health and of sufficiently abundant harvests has passed. For these, and especially for the improved condition of our national affairs, our renewed and profoundest gratitude to God is. due."

the reference of General Banks in the House of Representatives in 1868 to this circumstance as cited by Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, vol. ii. p. 334, there is some exaggeration.

1 The one assembling Dec. 7, 1863.

2 Classification of the Tribune Almanac.

3 Ibid.