ratulate you on the great public service you have rendered in the
capture of the rebel emissaries."(14) Chandler promptly applauded the
seizure and when it was suggested that perhaps the envoys should
be released he at once arrayed himself in opposition.(15) With the
truculent Jacobins ready to close battle should the government do its
duty, with the country still echoing to cheers for Fremont and hisses
for the President, with nothing to his credit in the way of military
success, Lincoln faced a crisis. He was carried through the crisis by
two strong men. Sumner, head and front of Abolitionism but also a
great lawyer, came at once to his assistance. And what could a thinking
Abolitionist say after that! Seward skilfully saved the face of the
government by his management of the negotiation. The envoys were
released and sent to England.

It was the only thing to do, but Chandler and all his sort had opposed
it. The Abolition fury against the government was at fever heat. Wendell
Phillips in a speech at New York denounced the Administration as having
no definite purpose in the war, and was interrupted by frantic cheers
for Fremont. McClellan, patiently drilling his army, was, in the eyes
of the Jacobins, doing nothing. Congress had assembled. There was every
sign that troubled waters lay just ahead.

XIX. THE JACOBINS BECOME INQUISITORS

The temper animating Hay's "Jacobins" formed a new and really formidable
danger which menaced Lincoln at the close of 1861. But had he been
anything of an opportunist, it would have offered him an unrivaled
opportunity. For a leader who sought personal power, this raging
savagery, with its triple alliance of an organized political machine, a
devoted fanaticism, and the war fury, was a chance in ten thousand. It
led to his door the steed of militarism, shod and bridled, champing
upon the bit, and invited him to leap into the saddle. Ten words of
acquiescence in the program of the Jacobins, and the dreaded role of the
man on horseback was his to command.

The fallacy that politics are primarily intellectual decisions upon
stated issues, the going forth of the popular mind to decide between
programs presented to it by circumstances, receives a brilliant
refutation in the course of the powerful minority that was concentrating
around the three great "Jacobins." The subjective side of politics, also
the temperamental side, here found expression. Statecraft is an art;
creative statesme