and sometimes bursting open paths
of progress and fruitful human commerce through what seem the eternal
barriers of both. It is loyalty to great ends, even though forced to
combine the small and opposing motives of selfish men to accomplish
them; it is the anchored cling to solid principles of duty and action,
which knows how to swing with the tide, but is never carried away by
it,--that we demand in public men, and not obstinacy in prejudice,
sameness of policy, or a conscientious persistency in what is
impracticable. For the impracticable, however theoretically enticing,
is always politically unwise, sound statesmanship being the application
of that prudence to the public business which is the safest guide in
that of private men.

No doubt slavery was the most delicate and embarrassing question with
which Mr. Lincoln was called on to deal, and it was one which no man in
his position, whatever his opinions, could evade; for, though he might
withstand the clamor of partisans, he must sooner or later yield to the
persistent importunacy of circumstances, which thrust the problem upon
him at every turn and in every shape.

It has been brought against us as an accusation abroad and repeated
here by people who measure their country rather by what is thought of
it than by what it is, that our war has not been distinctly and
avowedly for the extinction of slavery, but a war rather for the
preservation of our national power and greatness, in which the
emancipation of the negro has been forced upon us by circumstances and
accepted as a necessity. We are very far from denying this; nay, we
admit that it is so far true that we were slow to renounce our
constitutional obligations even toward those who had absolved us by
their own act from the letter of our duty. We are speaking of the
government which, legally installed for the whole country, was bound,
so long as it was possible, not to overstep the limits of orderly
prescription, and could not, without abnegating its own very nature,
take the lead in making rebellion an excuse for revolution. There
were, no doubt, many ardent and sincere persons who seemed to think
this as simple a thing to do as to lead off a Virginia reel. They
forgot what should be forgotten least of all in a system like ours,
that the administration for the time being represents not only the
majority which elects it, but the minority as well,--a minority in this
case powerful, and so little ready for