V. A WAR BEHIND THE SCENES

By the autumn of 1862, Lincoln had acquired the same political method
that Seward had displayed in the spring of 1861. What a chasm separates
the two Lincolns! The cautious, contradictory, almost timid statesman of
the Sumter episode; the confident, unified, quietly masterful statesman
of the Emancipation Proclamation. Now, in action, he was capable of
staking his whole future on the soundness of his own thinking, on his
own ability to forecast the inevitable. Without waiting for the results
of the Proclamation to appear, but in full confidence that he had driven
a wedge between the Jacobins proper and the mere Abolitionists, he threw
down the gage of battle on the issue of a constitutional dictatorship.
Two days after issuing the Proclamation he virtually proclaimed himself
dictator. He did so by means of a proclamation which divested the whole
American people of the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus. The
occasion was the effort of State governments to establish conscription
of their militia. The Proclamation delivered any one impeding that
attempt into the hands of the military authorities without trial.

Here was Lincoln's final answer to Stevens; here, his audacious
challenge to the Jacobins. And now appeared the wisdom of his political
strategy, holding back emancipation until Congress was out of the way.
Had Congress been in session what a hubbub would have ensued! Chandler,
Wade, Trumbull, Sumner, Stevens, all hurrying to join issue on the
dictatorship; to get it before the country ahead of emancipation.
Rather, one can not imagine Lincoln daring to play this second card, so
soon after the first, except with abundant time for the two issues to
disentangle themselves in the public mind ere Congress met. And that was
what happened. When the Houses met in December, the Jacobins found
their position revolutionized. The men who, in July at the head of the
Vindictive coalition, dominated Congress, were now a minority faction
biting their nails at the President amid the ruins of their coalition.

There were three reasons for this collapse. First of all, the
Abolitionists, for the moment, were a faction by themselves. Six weeks
had sufficed to intoxicate them with their opportunity. The significance
of the Proclamation had had time to arise towering on their spiritual
vision, one of the gates of the New Jerusalem.

Limited as it was in application who could doubt that, with one
condit