ters. In lots
of little things, like a tired man who was careless by nature, Lincoln
may perhaps have yielded to influence or acted for his political
convenience in ways which may justly be censured, but it would be merely
immoral to care whether he did so or did not, since at the crisis of his
fate he could risk all for one scruple. In an earlier stage of his
controversies with the parties he had written: "From time to time I have
done and said what appeared to me proper to do and say. The public knows
it all. It obliges nobody to follow me, and I trust it obliges me to
follow nobody. The Radicals and Conservatives each agree with me in some
things and disagree in others. I could wish both to agree with me in all
things; for then they would agree with each other, and be too strong for
any foe from any quarter. They, however, choose to do otherwise, and I
do not question their right. I, too, shall do what seems to be my duty.
I hold whoever commands in Missouri or elsewhere responsible to me and
not to either Radicals or Conservatives. It is my duty to hear all; but
at last I must, within my sphere, judge what to do and what to forbear."

In this same month of July, after the Confederate General Early's
appearance before Washington had given Lincoln a pause from political
cares, another trouble reached a point at which it is known to have tried
his patience more than any other trouble of his Presidency. Peace after
war is not always a matter of substituting the diplomatist for the
soldier. When two sides were fighting, one for Union and the other for
Independence, one or the other had to surrender the whole point at issue.
In this case there might appear to have been a third possibility. The
Southern States might have been invited to return to the Union on terms
which admitted their right to secede again if they felt aggrieved. The
invitation would in fact have been refused. But, if it had been made and
accepted, this would have been a worse surrender for the North than any
mere acknowledgment that the South could not be reconquered; for national
unity from that day to this would have existed on the sufferance of a
factious or a foreign majority in any single State. Lincoln had faced
this. He was there to restore the Union on a firm foundation. He meant
to insist to the point of pedantry that, by not so much as a word or line
from the President or any one seeming to act for him, should the lawful
right o