surrender was appalling! Mr. Lincoln had never before shown any inclination to depute to others so much of his own discretionary authority; his habit was quite the other way.

It is not worth while to discuss much the merits or demerits of President Lincoln's schemes for reconstruction. They had been only roughly and imperfectly blocked out at the time of his death; and in presenting them he repeatedly stated that he did not desire to rule out other schemes which might be suggested; on the contrary, he distinctly stated his approval of the scheme developed in the bill introduced by Senator Davis and passed by Congress. Reconstruction, as it was actually conducted later on, was wretchedly bungled, and was marked chiefly by bitterness in disputation and by clumsiness in practical arrangements, which culminated in that miserable disgrace known as the régime of the "carpet-baggers." How far Lincoln would have succeeded in saving the country from these humiliating processes, no one can say; that he would have strenuously disapproved much that was done is not open to reasonable doubt. On the other hand, it is by no means certain that his theories, at least so far as they had been developed up to the time of his death, either could have been, or ought to have been carried out. This seems to be generally agreed. Perhaps they were too liberal; perhaps he confided too much in a sudden change of heart, an immediate growth of loyalty, among persons of whom nearly all were still embit

but

tered, still believed that it was in a righteous cause that they had suffered a cruel defeat.

But if the feasibility of Mr. Lincoln's plan is matter of fruitless disputation, having to do only with fancied probabilities, and having never been put to the proof of trial, at least no one will deny that it was creditable to his nature. A strange freak of destiny arranged that one of the most obstinate, sanguinary wars of history should be conducted by one of the most humane men who ever lived, and that blood should run in rivers at the order of a ruler to whom bloodshed was repugnant, and to whom the European idol of military glory seemed a symbol of barbarism. During the war Lincoln's chief purpose was the restoration of national unity, and his day-dream was that it should be achieved as a sincere and hearty reunion in feeling as well as in fact. As he dwelt with much earnest aspiration upon this consummation, he perhaps came to imagine a possibility of its instant accomplishment, which did not really exist. His longing for a genuinely reunited country was not a pious form of expression, but an intense sentiment, and an end which he definitely expected to bring to pass. Not improbably this frame of mind induced him to advance too fast and too far, in order to meet with welcoming hand persons who were by no means in such a condition of feeling that they could grasp that hand in good faith, or could fulfil at once the obligations which such a reconciliation would have imposed upon them, as

matter of honor, in all their civil and political relations. The reaction involved in passing from a state of hostilities to a state of peace, the deep gratification of seeing so mortal a struggle determined in favor of the national life, may have carried him somewhat beyond the limitations set by the hard facts of the case, and by the human nature alike of the excited conquerors and the impenitent conquered. On the other hand, however, it is dangerous to say that Mr. Lincoln made a mistake in reading the popular feeling or in determining a broad policy. If he did, he did so for the first time. Among those suppositions in which posterity is free to indulge, it is possible to fancy that if he, whom all now admit to have been the best friend of the South living in April, 1865, had continued to live longer, he might have alleviated, if he could not altogether have prevented, the writing of some very painful chapters in the history of the United States.

NOTE. — In writing this chapter, I have run somewhat ahead of the narrative in point of time; but I hope that the desirability of treating the topic connectedly, as a whole, will be obvious to the reader.

CHAPTER IX.

RENOMINATION.

IN a period of fervid political feeling it was natural that those Republicans who were dissatisfied with President Lincoln should begin, long before the close of his term of office, to seek consolation by arrangements for replacing him by a successor more to their taste. Expressions of this purpose became definite in the autumn of 1863. Mr. Arnold says that the coming presidential election was expected to bring grave danger, if not even anarchy and revolution.1 Amid existing circumstances, an opposition confined to the legitimate antagonism of the Democracy would, of course, have brought something more than the customary strain inherent in ordinary times in government by party; and it was unfortunate that, besides this, an undue gravity was imported into the crisis by the intestinal dissensions of the Republicans themselves. It seemed by no means impossible that these disagreements might give to the friends of peace by compromise a victory which

1 Arnold, Lincoln, 384, 385. Nicolay and Hay seem to me to go too far in belittling the opposition to Mr. Lincoln within the Republican party.

they really ought not to have. Republican hostility to Mr. Lincoln was unquestionably very bitter in quality, whatever it might be in quantity. It was based in part upon the discontent of the radicals and extremists, in part upon personal irritation. In looking back upon those times there is now a natural tendency to measure this opposition by the weakness which it ultimately displayed when, later on, it was swept out of sight by the overwhelming current of the popular will. But this weakness was by no means so visible in the winter of 1863-64. On the contrary the cry for a change then seemed to come from every quarter, and to come loudly; for it was echoed back and forth by the propagandists and politicians, and as these persons naturally did most of the talking and writing in the country, so they made a show delusively out of proportion to their following among the people.

The dislike toward the President flourished chiefly in two places, and with two distinct bodies of men. One of these places was Missouri, which will be spoken of later on. The other was Washington, where the class of "public men" was for the most part very ill-disposed towards him.1 Mr. Julian, himself a prominent malcontent, bears his valuable testimony to the extent of the disaffection, saying that, of the "more earnest and thoroughgoing Republicans in both Houses of Congress,

1 See Arnold, Lincoln, 385. But the fact is notorious among

all who remember those times.