y, the tumultuous competition of men,
opinions, and questions, which made the first eighteen months of his
presidency confusing and exciting as a great tempest on the sea, have
gone by. For the future his occupation is rather to keep a broad,
general supervision, to put his controlling touch for the moment now
here, now there. He ceases to appear as an individual contestant; his
personality, though not less important, is less conspicuous; his
influence is exerted less visibly, though not less powerfully. In short,
the business-like aspect affects him and his functions as it does all
else that concerns the actual conduct of the war; he too feels, though
he may not formulate, the change whereby a crisis has passed into a
condition. This will be seen from the character of the remainder of this
narrative. There are no more controversies which call for other chapters
like those which told of the campaigns of McClellan. There are no more
fierce intestine dissensions like those which preceded the Proclamation
of Emancipation,--at least not until the matter of reconstruction comes
up, and reconstruction properly had not to do with the war, but with the
later period. In a word, the country had become like the steed who has
ceased fretfully to annoy the rider, while the rider, though exercising
an ever-watchful control, makes less apparent exertion.

* * * * *

By one of the odd arrangements of our governmental machine, it was not
until December 7, 1863, that the members of the Thirty-eighth Congress
met for the first time to express those political sentiments which had
been in vogue more than a year before that time, that is to say during
the months of October and November, 1862, when these gentlemen had been
elected, at the close of the summer's campaign. It has been said and
shown that a very great change in popular feeling had taken place and
made considerable advance during this interval. The autumn of 1863 was
very different from the autumn of 1862! A Congress coming more newly
from the people would have been much more Republican in its complexion.
Still, even as it was, the Republicans had an ample working majority,
and moreover were disturbed by fewer and less serious dissensions among
themselves than had been the case occasionally in times past. McClellan
and the Emancipation Proclamation had not quite yet been succeeded by
any other questions of equal potency for alienating a large section