ministers. The man who had begun life as a frontiersman had need of
much moral courage to sustain him in the face of the presagings, the
condemnations, and the hostility of nearly all the sage and well-trained
statesmen of Europe. In those days the United States had not yet fully
thrown off a certain thralldom of awe before European opinion.
Nevertheless, at whatever cost in the coin of self-reliance, the
President and the secretary maintained the courage of their opinions,
and never swerved or hesitated in the face of foreign antipathy or
contempt. The treatment inflicted upon them was only so much added to
the weight under which they had to stand up.

* * * * *

Rebellion and foreign ill-will, even Copperheadism, presented
difficulties and opposition which were in a certain sense legitimate;
but that loyal Republicans should sow the path of the administration
thick with annoyances certainly did seem an unfair trial. Yet, on sundry
occasions, some of which have been mentioned, these men did this thing,
and they did it in the very uncompromising and exasperating manner which
is the natural emanation from conscientious purpose and intense
self-faith. An instance occurred in December, 1862. The blacker the
prospect became, the more bitter waxed the extremists. Such is the
fashion of fanatics, who are wont to grow more warm as their chances
seem to grow more desperate; and some of the leaders of the anti-slavery
wing of the Republican party were fanatics. These men by no means
confined their hostility to the Democratic McClellan; but extended it to
so old and tried a Republican as the secretary of state himself. It had
already come to this, that the new party was composed of, if not split
into, two sections of widely discordant views. The conservative body
found its notions expressed in the cabinet by Seward; the radical body
had a mouthpiece in Chase. The conservatives were not aggressive; but
the radicals waged a genuine political warfare, and denounced Seward,
not, indeed, with the vehemence which was considered to be appropriate
against McClellan, yet very strenuously. Finally this hostility reached
such a pass that, at a caucus of Republican senators, it was actually
voted to demand the dismission of this long-tried and distinguished
leader in the anti-slavery struggle. Later, in place of this blunt vote,
a more polite equivalent was substituted, in the shape of a request for
a reconstr