graver and grander strain of thought and feeling that inspired the greatest of his speeches. Physically his splendid health does not seem to have been impaired beyond recovery. But it was manifestly near to breaking; and deep-cut lines" were cut still deeper, and the long legs were always cold.

The cloud over the North passed very suddenly. The North indeed paid the penalty of a nation which is spared the full strain of a war at the first, and begins to discover its seriousness when the hope of easy victory has been many times dashed down. It has been necessary to dwell upon the despondency which at one time prevailed; but it would be hard to rate too highly the military difficulty of the conquest undertaken by the North, or the trial involved to human nature by perseverance in such a task. If the depression during the summer was excessive, as it clearly was, at least the recovery which followed was fully adequate to the occasion which produced it. On September 2 Sherman telegraphed, “Atlanta is ours and fairly won." The strategic importance of earlier successes may have been greater, but the most ignorant man who looked at a map could see what it signified that the North could occupy an important city in the heart of Georgia. Then they recalled Farragut's victory of a month before. Then there followed, close to Washington, putting an end to a continual menace, stirring and picturesquely brilliant beyond other incidents of the war, Sheridan's repeated victories in the Shenandoah Valley. The war which had been "voted a failure" was evidently not a failure. At the same time men of high character conducted a vigorous campaign of speeches for Lincoln. General Schurz, the German revolutionary Liberal, who lived to tell Bismarck at his table that he still preferred democracy to his amused host's method of government, sacrificed his command in the Army-for Lincoln told him it could not be restored-to speak for Lincoln. Even Chase was carried away, and after months of insidious detraction, went for Lincoln on the stump. In the elections in November Lincoln was elected by an enormous popular majority,

giving him 212 out of the 233 votes in the electoral college, where in form the election is made. Three Northern States only, one of them his native State, had gone against him. He made some little speeches to parties which came to serenade him; some were not very formal speeches, for, as he said, he was now too old to

66

19

care much about the mode of doing things." But one was this: "It has long been a grave question whether any Government not too strong for the liberties of its people can be strong enough to maintain its existence in great emergencies. On this point the present rebellion brought our Government to a severe test, and a Presidential election occurring in regular course during the rebellion added not a little to the strain. But we cannot have a free Government without elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forego or postpone a national election it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us. But the election along with its incidental and undesirable strife has done good too. It has demonstrated that a people's Government can sustain a national election in the midst of a great civil war. Until now it has not been known to the world that this was a possibility. But the rebellion continues, and now that the election is over may not all have a common interest to reunite in a common effort to save our common country? For my own part I have striven and shall strive to avoid placing any obstacle in the way. So long as I have been here I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's bosom. While I am duly sensible to the high compliment of a re-election, and duly grateful as I trust to Almighty God for having directed my countrymen to a right conclusion, as I think, for their good, it adds nothing to my satisfaction that any man may be disappointed by the result. May I ask those who have not differed from me to join with me in this same spirit towards those who have? And now let me close by asking three hearty cheers for our brave soldiers and seamen, and their gallant and skilful commanders."

In the Cabinet he brought out the paper that he had

sealed up in the dark days of August; he reminded his ministers of how they had endorsed it unread, and he read it them. Its contents ran thus: "This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President-elect as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration, as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterwards." Lincoln explained what he had intended to do if McClellan had won. He would have gone to him and said, “General, this election shows that you are stronger, have more influence with the people of this country than I"; and he would have invited him to co-operate in saving the Union now, by using that great influence to secure from the people the willing enlistment of enough recruits. "And the general," said Seward, "would have said, 'Yes, yes'; and again the next day, when you spoke to him about it, 'Yes, yes'; and so on indefinitely, and he would have done nothing."

""

"Seldom in history," wrote Emerson in a letter after the election, was so much staked upon a popular vote. I suppose never in history."

And to those Americans of all classes and in all districts of the North, who had set their hearts and were giving all they had to give to preserve the life of the nation, the political crisis of 1864 would seem to have I been the most anxious moment of the war. It is impossible-it must be repeated-to guess how great the danger really was that their popular government might in the result betray the true and underlying will of the people; for in any country (and in America perhaps more than most) the average of politicians, whose voices are most loudly heard, can only in a rough and approximate fashion be representative. But there is in any case no cause for surprise that the North should at one time have trembled. Historic imagination is easily, though not one whit too deeply, moved by the heroic stand of the South. It is only after the effort to understand the light

in which the task of the North has presented itself to capable soldiers, that a civilian can perceive what sustained resolution was required if, though far the stronger, it was to make its strength tell. Notwithstanding the somewhat painful impression which the political chronicle of this time at some points gives, it is the fact that the wisest Englishmen who were in those days in America and had means of observing what passed have retained a lasting sense of the constancy, under trial, of the North.

THE END

ON December 6, 1864, Lincoln sent the last of his Annual Messages to Congress. He treated as matter for oblivion the "impugning of motives and heated controversy as to the proper means of advancing the Union cause," which had played so large a part in the Presi dential election and the other elections of the autumn. For, as he said, "on the distinct issue of Union or no Union the politicians have shown their instinctive knowledge that there is no diversity among the people." This was accurate as well as generous, for though many Democrats had opposed the war, none had avowed that for the sake of peace he would give up the Union. Passing then to the means by which the Union could be made to prevail he wrote: "On careful consideration of all the evidence accessible it seems to me that no attempt at negotiation with the insurgent leader could result in any good. He would accept nothing short of severance of the Union-precisely what we will not and cannot give. Between him and us the issue is distinct, simple, and inflexible. It is an issue which can only be tried by war and decided by victory. The abandonment of armed resist ance to the national authority on the part of the insurgents is the only indispensable condition to ending the war on the part of the Government." To avoid a possi ble misunderstanding he added that not a single person who was free by the terms of the Emancipation Proclamation or of any Act of Congress would be returned to slavery while he held the executive authority. "If the people should by whatever mode or means make it an executive duty to re-enslave such persons, another, and not I, must be their instrument to perform it." This last