found instead a
kingdom. How had he done it?

On a grand scale, it was the same sort of victory that had made him
a power, so long before, on the little stage at Springfield. It was
personal politics. His character had saved him. A multitude who saw
nothing in the fine drawn constitutional issue of the war powers,
who sensed the war in the most simple and elementary way, had formed,
somehow, a compelling and stimulating idea of the President. They were
satisfied that "Old Abe," or "Father Abraham," was the man for them.
When, after one of his numerous calls for fresh troops, their hearts
went out to him, a new song sprang to life, a ringing, vigorous, and yet
a touching song with the refrain, "We're coming, Father Abraham, three
hundred thousand more."

But how has he done it, asked the bewildered politicians, one of
another. How had he created this personal confidence? They, Wade,
Chandler, Stevens, Davis, could not do it; why could he?

Well, for one thing, he was a grand reality. They, relatively, were
shadows. The wind of destiny for him was the convictions arising out of
his own soul; for them it was vox populi. The genuineness of Lincoln,
his spiritual reality, had been perceived early by a class of men
whom your true politician seldom understands. The Intellectuals--"them
literary fellers," in the famous words of an American Senator--were
quick to see that the President was an extraordinary man; they were not
long in concluding that he was a genius. The subtlest intellect of the
time, Hawthorne, all of whose prejudices were enlisted against him, said
in the Atlantic of July, 1863: "He is evidently a man of keen faculties,
and what is still more to the purpose, of powerful character. As to his
integrity, the people have that intuition of it which is never deceived
he has a flexible mind capable of much expansion." And this when
Trumbull chafed in spirit because the President was too "weak" for his
part and Wade railed at him as a despot. As far back as 1860, Lowell,
destined to become one of his ablest defenders, had said that Lincoln
had "proved both his ability and his integrity; he . . . had experience
enough in public affairs to make him a statesman, and not enough to make
him a politician." To be sure, there were some Intellectuals who could
not see straight nor think clear. The world would have more confidence
in the caliber of Bryant had he been able to rank himself in the Lincoln
following. But the grea