the government would be to treat the seceders with great
forbearance, to avoid all measures likely to exasperate them or to
embarrass their loyal fellow-citizens, to act simply on the defensive,
and to leave the Union men in the several seceding States to gain a
political victory at the polls over the secessionists, and to return
their States to their normal position in the Union.

The government may not have had much faith in this policy, and Mr.
Lincoln's personal authority might be cited to the effect that it had
not, but it was urged strongly by the Union men of the Border States.
The administration was hardly seated in office, and its members were
new men, without administrative experience; the President, who had been
legally elected indeed, but without a majority of the popular votes,
was far from having the full confidence even of the party that elected
him; opinions were divided; party spirit ran high; the excitement was
great, the crisis was imminent, the government found itself left by its
predecessor without an army or a navy, and almost without arms or
ordnance; it knew not how far it could count on popular support, and
was hardly aware whom it could trust or should distrust; all was hurry
and confusion; and what could the government do but to gain time, keep
off active war as long as possible, conciliate all it could, and take
ground which at the time seemed likely to rally the largest number of
the people to its support? There were men then, warm friends of the
administration, and still warmer friends of their country, who believed
that a bolder, a less timid, a less cautious policy would have been
wiser, that in revolutionary times boldness, what in other times would
be rashness, is the highest prudence, on the side of the government as
well as on the side of the revolution; that when once it has shown
itself, the rebellion that hesitates, deliberates, consults, is
defeated and so is the government. The seceders owed from the first
their successes not to their superior organization, to their better
preparation, or to the better discipline and appointment of their
armies, but to their very rashness, to their audacity even, and the
hesitancy, cautious and deliberation of the government. Napoleon owed
his successes as general and civilian far more to the air of power he
assumed, and the conviction he produced of his invincibility in the
minds of his opponents, than to his civil or military strategy and
t