ncoln never seemed moved by the desire. "All I have to ask," he said,
"is that we talk reasonably and rationally;" and again: "I hope to deal
in all things fairly with Judge Douglas." No innuendo, no artifice, in
any speech, gave the lie to these protestations. Besides this, his
denunciations were always against _slavery_, and never against
_slaveholders_. The emphasis of condemnation, the intensity of feeling,
were never expended against persons. By this course, unusual among the
Abolitionists, he not only lost nothing in force and impressiveness,
but, on the contrary, his attack seemed to gain in effectiveness by
being directed against no personal object, but exclusively against a
practice. His war was against slavery, not against the men and women of
the South who owned slaves. At Ottawa he read from the Peoria speech of
1854: "I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just
what we would [should] be in their situation. If slavery did not now
exist among them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist among
us, we should not instantly give it up.... It does seem to me that
systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their
tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the
South." Repeatedly he admitted the difficulty of the problem, and
fastened no blame upon those Southerners who excused themselves for not
expelling the evil on the ground that they did not know how to do so. At
Peoria he said: "If all earthly power were given me, I should not know
what to do as to the existing institution." He contributed some
suggestions which certainly were nothing better than chimerical.
Deportation to Africa was his favorite scheme; he also proposed that it
would be "best for all concerned to have the colored population in a
State by themselves." But he did not abuse men who declined to adopt his
methods. Though he was dealing with a question which was arousing
personal antagonisms as bitter as any that history records, yet he never
condemned any one, nor ever passed judgment against his fellow men.

Diagnosis would perhaps show that the trait thus illustrated was mental
rather than moral. This absence of animosity and reproach as towards
individuals found its root not so much in human charity as in fairness
of thinking. Lincoln's ways of mental working are not difficult to
discover. He thought slowly, cautiously, profoundly, and with a most
close accuracy; but above all else