imself might be called, in a certain sense, the very cause of
rebellion; of course the people who had elected him carried the real
responsibility; but he stood as the token of the difference, the
concrete provocation to the fight. The South had said: _Abraham Lincoln_
brings secession. It was frightful to think that, as he was in fact the
signal, so posterity might mistake him for the very cause of the rending
of a great nation, the failure of a grand experiment. It might be that
this destiny was before him, for the outcome of this struggle no one
could foretell; it might be his sad lot to mark the end of the line of
Presidents of the United States. Lincoln was not a man who could escape
the full weight of these reflections, and it is to be remembered that
all actions were taken beneath that weight. It was a strong man, then,
who stood up and said, This is my load and I will carry it; and who did
carry it, when others offered to shift much of it upon their own
shoulders; also who would not give an hour's thought to a scheme which
promised to lift it away entirely, and to leave it for some other who by
and by should come after him.

It is worth while to remember that Mr. Lincoln was the most advised man,
often the worst advised man, in the annals of mankind. The torrent must
have been terribly confusing! Another instance deserves mention: shortly
before Mr. Seward's strange proposal, Governor Hicks, distracted at the
tumult in Maryland, had suggested that the quarrel between North and
South should be referred to Lord Lyons as arbitrator! It was difficult
to know whether to be amused or resentful before a proposition at once
so silly and so ignominious. Yet it came from an important official, and
it was only one instance among thousands. With war as an actuality, such
vagaries as those of Hicks and Seward came sharply to an end. People
wondered and talked somewhat as to how long hostilities would last, how
much they would cost, how they would end; and were not more correct in
these speculations than they had been in others. But though the day of
gross absurdities was over, the era of advice endured permanently. That
peculiar national trait whereby every American knows at least as much on
every subject whatsoever as is known by any other living man, produced
its full results during the war. Every clergyman and humanitarian, every
village politician and every city wire-puller, every one who conned the
maps of Virginia and im