and
spirited. But it is impossible to praise Mr. Lincoln for contemning a
course which it is surprising to find any person sufficiently ignoble to
recommend. It was, nevertheless, recommended by many, and thus we may
partly see what extremities of feeling were produced by this most
debasing question which has ever entered into the politics of a
civilized nation.

The anxieties of the war Democrats, who feared that Mr. Lincoln was
making abolition an essential purpose of the war, have already been set
forth. In truth he was not making it so, but by the drifting of events
and the ensnarlment of facts it had practically become so without his
responsibility. His many utterances which survive seem to indicate that,
having from the beginning hoped that the war would put an end to
slavery, he now knew that it must do so. He saw that this conclusion lay
at the end of the natural course of events, also that it was not a goal
which was set there by those to whom it was welcome, or which could be
taken away by those to whom it was unwelcome. It was there by the
absolute and uncontrollable logic of facts. His function was only to
take care that this natural course should not be obstructed, and this
established goal should not be maliciously removed away out of reach.
When he was asked why his expressions of willingness to negotiate with
the Confederate leaders stipulated not only for the restoration of the
Union but also for the enfranchisement of all slaves, he could only
reply by intimating that the yoking of the two requirements was
unobjectionable from any point of view, because he was entirely assured
that Mr. Davis would never agree to reunion, either with or without
slavery. Since, therefore, Union could not be had until after the South
had been whipped, it would be just as well to demand abolition also; for
the rebels would not then be in a position to refuse it, and we should
practically buy both in one transaction. To him it seemed an appalling
blunder to pay the price of this great war simply in order to cure this
especial outbreak of the great national malady, and still to leave
existing in the body politic that which had induced this dissension and
would inevitably afterward induce others like unto it. The excision of
the cause was the only intelligent action. Yet when pushed to the point
of declaring what he would do in the supposed case of an opportunity to
restore the Union, with slavery, he said: "My enemies prete