ty by shutting one's eyes to it,
or the more plausible proposal of the Northern Democrats to continue
temporising with a movement for slavery in which they were neither bold
enough nor corrupted enough to join. The consequences, now known to
us, of a determined stand against the advance of slavery were
instinctively foreseen by these men, and they cannot be blamed for
shrinking from them. Yet the historian now, knowing that those
consequences exceeded in terror all that could have been foreseen, can
only agree with the judgment expressed by Lincoln in one of his Kansas
speeches: "We want and must have a national policy as to slavery which
deals with it as being a wrong. Whoever would prevent slavery becoming
national and perpetual yields all when he yields to a policy which
treats it either as being right, or as being a matter of indifference."
The Republican party had been founded upon just this opinion.
Electoral victory was now being prepared for it, not because a majority
was likely yet to take so resolute a view, but because its effective
opponents were divided between those who had gone the length of calling
slavery right and those who strove to treat it as indifferent. The
fate of America may be said to have depended in the early months of
1860 on whether the nominee of the Republican party was a man who would
maintain its principles with irresolution, or with obstinacy, or with
firm moderation.

When it had first been suggested to Lincoln in the course of 1859 that
he might be that nominee he said, "I do not think myself fit for the
Presidency." This was probably his sincere opinion at the moment,
though perhaps the moment was one of dejection. In any case his
opinion soon changed, and though it is not clear whether he encouraged
his friends to bring his name forward, we know in a general way that
when they decided to do so he used every effort of his own to help
them. We must accept without reserve Herndon's reiterated assertion
that Lincoln was intensely ambitious; and, if ambition means the eager
desire for great opportunities, the depreciation of it, which has long
been a commonplace of literature, and which may be traced back to the
Epicureans, is a piece of cant which ought to be withdrawn from
currency, and ambition, commensurate with the powers which each man can
discover in himself, should be frankly recognised as a part of
Christian duty. In judging him to be the best man for the Presidency,
L