f it may be, far above, personal and partisan politics," of the
opportunity of good now open to them. The hope of the Confederacy was,
as he then conceived, fixed upon the sympathy which it might arouse in
the border States, two of which, Kentucky and Maryland, were in fact
invaded that year with some hope of a rising among the inhabitants.
The "lever" which the Confederates hoped to use in these States was the
interest of the slave owners there; "Break that lever before their
eyes," he urged. But the hundred and one reasons which can always be
found against action presented themselves at once to the
Representatives of the border States. Congress itself so far accepted
the President's view that both Houses passed the Resolution which he
had suggested. Indeed it gladly did something more; a Bill, such as
Lincoln himself had prepared as a Congressman fourteen years before,
was passed for abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia;
compensation was paid to the owners; a sum was set apart to help the
settlement in Liberia of any of the slaves who were willing to go; and
at Lincoln's suggestion provision was added for the education of the
negro children. Nothing more was done at this time.

Throughout this matter Lincoln took counsel chiefly with himself. He
could not speak his full thought to the public, and apparently he did
not do so to any of his Cabinet. Supposing that the border States had
yielded to his persuasion, it may still strike us as a very sanguine
calculation that their action would have had much effect upon the
resolution of the Confederates. But it must be noted that when Lincoln
first approached the Representatives of the border States, the highest
expectations were entertained of the victory that McClellan would win
in Virginia, and when he made his last, rather despairing, appeal to
them, the decision to withdraw the army from the Peninsula had not yet
been taken. If a really heavy blow had been struck at the Confederates
in Virginia, their chief hope of retrieving their military fortunes
would certainly have lain in that invasion of Kentucky, which did
shortly afterwards occur and which was greatly encouraged by the hope
of a rising of Kentucky men who wished to join the Confederacy. This
part of Lincoln's calculations was therefore quite reasonable. And it
was further reasonable to suppose that, if the South had then given in
and Congress had acted in the spirit of the Resolution which it