to abolish slavery. Lincoln would say nothing as to the choice
of a candidate for the Vice-Presidency. He was right, but the result was
most unhappy in the end. The Convention chose Andrew Johnson. Johnson,
whom Lincoln could hardly endure, began life as a journeyman tailor. He
had raised himself like Lincoln, and had performed a great part in
rallying the Unionists of Tennessee. But--not to dwell upon the fact
that he was drunk when he was sworn in as Vice-President--his political
creed was that of bitter class-hatred, and his character degenerated into
a weak and brutal obstinacy. This man was to succeed Lincoln. Lincoln,
in his letter to accept the nomination, wrote modestly, refusing to take
the decision of the Convention as a tribute to his peculiar fitness for
his post, but was "reminded in this connection of a story of an old Dutch
farmer, who remarked to a companion that it was not best to swap horses
when crossing a stream."

It remained possible that the dissatisfied Republicans would revolt later
and put another champion in the field. But now attention turned to the
Democrats. Their Convention was to meet at Chicago at the end of August,
and in the interval the North entered upon the period of deepest mental
depression that came to it during the war. It is startling to learn now
that in the course of that year, when the Confederacy lay like a nut in
the nutcrackers, when the crushing of its resistance might indeed require
a little stronger pressure than was expected, and the first splitting in
its hard substance might not come on the side on which it was looked for,
but when no wise man could have a doubt as to the end, the victorious
people were inclined to think that the moment had come for giving in.
"In this purpose to save the country and its liberties," said Lincoln,
"no class of people seem so nearly unanimous as the soldiers in the field
and the sailors afloat. Do they not have the hardest of it? Who should
quail while they do not?" Yet there is conclusive authority for saying
that there was now more quailing in the North than there had ever been
before. When the war had gone on long, checks to the course of victory
shook the nerves of people at home more than crushing defeats had shaken
them in the first two years of the struggle, and men who would have
wrapped the word "surrender" in periphrasis went about with surrender in
their hearts. Thus the two months that went before the great r