ing elections on the first Monday of April next, and receive the vote of every free white male citizen above the age of twenty-one years, having resided within said District for the period of one year or more next preceding the time of such voting for or against this act, to proceed in taking such votes in all respects, not herein specified, as at elections under the municipal laws, and with as little delay as possible to transmit correct statements of the votes so cast to the President of the United States; and it shall be the duty of the President to canvass such votes immediately, and if a majority of them be found to be for this act, to forthwith issue his proclamation giving notice of the fact; and this act shall only be in full force and effect on and after the day of such proclamation.

"SEC. 7. That involuntary servitude for the punishment of crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted shall in nowise be prohibited by this

⚫ act.

"SEC. 8. That for all the purposes of this act, the jurisdictional limits of Washington are extended to all parts of the District of Columbia not now included within the present limits of Georgetown."

It was the 5th section of this bill that aroused Wendell Phillips's indignation. Both of these eminent men lived long enough to honor each other's

services and complement each other's career-for, without the agitator, the emancipator would have had no public opinion to support him, and, without Mr. Lincoln's act, Mr. Phillips's oratory would have remained brilliant rhetoric only.

Growing, as the people grew, in moral conviction, sympathizing with them and aiming only to do their will, Abraham Lincoln may rightly be regarded as a model democratic statesman. Thus growing and thus acting, his official measures had all the force of a resistless fate. What he achieved endured, because it was founded on the rock of the people's will. It has been the destiny of many illustrious reformers to outlive the reforms for which they zealously strove, and history furnishes innumerable illustrations of the truth that reforms not based on public opinion rarely outlast the lifetime of their champions. What eager idealists, therefore, decried in Lincoln-his loyal deference to the will of the majority, his tardiness in adopting radical measures, and his reluctance to advance more rapidly than the "plain folks"time has shown to be the highest wisdom in the ruler of a democracy.

Lincoln's deep-rooted faith in representative democracy was strikingly illustrated in his first public act-the appointment of his Cabinet. Believing in the rightfulness of party rule, that is to say, in the rule of the majority, instead of seeking to call as his

councillors men who might serve his personal ends, he selected them from the most popular of his rivals -men who had competed with him for the Presidential nomination. His Cabinet thus represented not only every division of his party, but consisted of those whom these factions regarded as their ablest representatives. It was a Cabinet of "all the talents" and all the popularities; and yet among these veteran statesmen, most of them long-trained and skillful in all the arts of statecraft, Lincoln was acknowledged the master spirit. This Cabinet numbered among its members men no less eminent than Seward, Chase and Stanton.

The question of ascendency in the Cabinet during the War of the Rebellion is still earnestly discussed by some. The names of Lincoln, Seward and Stanton have each advocates claiming unquestioned preeminence for one or the other of these great statesmen. Some, with greater zeal and fidelity than knowledge or justice, have sought to exalt the great Secretary of State or the great Secretary of War at the expense of the great War President. Surely no labor of love could be more futile. For history will place all of these illustrious Americans on the most honored pedestals in the nation's pantheon, and will add that each of them supplemented, not overshadowed, his associates. Yet no one who was familiar with the secrets of the administration

could well doubt that in all critical issues the uncouth Western statesman, unused to power, asserted and maintained his inherent as well as his official suprem

acy.

His common sense, his unselfish purpose, his keen perceptions, his unostentatious manners, his mental ubiquity, and his insight into men, soon made him as pre-eminent and as powerful with the leaders of the people as he had always been with the people themselves.

Stanton's iron will was felt at every important epoch of the war, but when his idea of policy conflicted with the purpose of his chief, the great War Minister was forced to yield. Seward, perhaps the ablest American diplomatist of the century, found also in the man of the people a master who knew when to exact implicit obedience. This fact is demonstrated by the State document herewith reproduced in fac-simile *—the dispatch conveying to Mr. Adams, our Minister at the Court of St. James's, Mr. Seward's first full instructions after the outbreak of the Rebellion. It was corrected by the President, as will now be seen, in words that testify to his statesmanship, as, without question, they saved the nation from a war with England, which, at that period, would probably have resulted in the establishment of the Southern Confederacy.

* This fac-simile, originally designed by me for this volume, was, for urgent reasons, unnecessary here to state, first published in the issue of the North American Review for April, 1886.

Lincoln, then, had been President for only three months. Certainly, when he came to the office, the farthest thing from the thought of the people was to credit him with diplomatic knowledge or skill. But this paper, by its erasures, its substitutions and its amendments, shows a nice sense of the shades of meaning in words, a comprehensive knowledge of the situation, and a thorough appreciation of the grave results which might follow the use of terms that he either modified or erased. These corrections of Mr. Seward's dispatch, by the "rail-splitter" of Illinois, form a most interesting addition to the history of Lincoln, and to that of our diplomacy.

The paper is one that needs few comments to bring its remarkable character before the reader. The burdens of home affairs, which then lay heavily on the new President, will readily recur to every student of our history. The countless demands upon his time gave little opportunity for reflection. Prompt action was required in all directions and in everything, small and great. But, as his handiwork shows, he turned with perfect composure from the home to the equally threatening foreign field, and revised, with a master-hand, the most important dispatch that had as yet been prepared by Mr. Seward. The work shows a freedom, an insight into foreign affairs, a skill in the use of language, a delicacy of criticism and a discrimination in methods of diplo