on that old issue of the war powers, of the dictatorship.

But in Lincoln's hand there were four other cards, all of which Wade
and Chandler would find it hard to match. He had the army. In the last
election the army had voted for him enthusiastically. And the army was
free from the spirit of revenge, the Spirit which Chandler built upon.
They had the plain people, the great mass whom the machine politicians
had failed to judge correctly in the August Conspiracy. Pretty
generally, he had the Intellectuals. Lastly, he had--or with skilful
generalship he could have--the Abolitionists.

The Thirteenth Amendment was not yet adopted. The question had been
raised, did it require three-fourths of all the States for its adoption,
or only three-fourths of those that were ranked as not in rebellion.
Here was the issue by means of which the Abolitionists might all be
brought into line. It was by no means certain that every Northern State
would vote for the amendment. In the smaller group of States, there was
a chance that the amendment might fail. But if it were submitted to the
larger group; and if every Reconstructed State, before Congress met,
should adopt the amendment; and if it was apparent that with these
Southern adoptions the amendment must prevail, all the great power of
the anti-slavery sentiment would be thrown on the side of the President
in favor of recognizing the new State governments and against the
Vindictives. Lincoln held a hand of trumps. Confidently, but not rashly,
he looked forward to his peaceful war with the Vindictives.

They were enemies not to be despised. To begin with, they were
experienced machine politicians; they had control of well-organized
political rings. They were past masters of the art of working up popular
animosities. And they were going to use this art in that dangerous
moment of reaction which invariably follows the heroic tension of a
great war. The alignment in the Senate revealed by the Louisiana battle
had also a significance. The fact that Sumner, who was not quite one of
them, became their general on that occasion, was something to remember.
They had made or thought they had made other powerful allies. The Vice
President, Andrew Johnson-the new president of the Senate-appeared at
this time to be cheek by jowl with the fiercest Vindictives of them all.
It would be interesting to know when the thought first occurred to them:
"If anything should happen to Lincoln, his successor woul