informed him of the critical condition of affairs. "When, ten days
ago, I told Mr. Lincoln that his re-election was an impossibility,"
Weed wrote Seward on August 22, "I told him the information would
also come through other channels. It has doubtless reached him ere
this. At any rate nobody here doubts it, nor do I see anybody from
other States who authorises the slightest hope of success. The people
are wild for peace. They are told the President will only listen to
terms of peace on condition that slavery be abandoned."[981] Weed's
"other channels" meant a report from the Republican National Executive
Committee, which Raymond, then its chairman, submitted to Lincoln on
August 22. "The tide is setting strongly against us," he wrote. "Hon.
E.B. Washburn writes that 'were an election to be held now in Illinois
we should be beaten.' Mr. Cameron says that Pennsylvania is against
us. Governor Morton writes that nothing but the most strenuous efforts
can carry Indiana. This State, according to the best information I can
get, would go 50,000 against us to-morrow. And so of the rest. Two
special causes are assigned for this great reaction in public
sentiment--the want of military successes, and the impression in some
minds, the fear and suspicion in others, that we are not to have peace
in any event under this Administration until slavery is abandoned. In
some way or other the suspicion is widely diffused that we can have
peace with Union if we would. It is idle to reason with this
belief--still more idle to denounce it. It can only be expelled by
some authoritative act at once bold enough to fix attention, and
distinct enough to defy incredulity and challenge respect."[982]

[Footnote 981: Nicolay-Hay, _Abraham Lincoln_, Vol. 9, p. 250.]

[Footnote 982: _Ibid._, p. 218.]

In December, 1860, in the presence of threatened war Lincoln refused
to yield to a compromise that would extend slavery into free
territory; now, in the presence of failure at the polls, he insisted
upon a peace that would abolish slavery. In 1860 he was flushed with
victory; in 1864 he was depressed by the absence of military
achievement. But he did not weaken. He telegraphed Grant to "hold on
with a bulldog grip, _and chew and choke as much as possible_,"[983]
and then, in the silence of early morning, with Raymond's starless
letter on the table before him, he showed how coolly and magnanimously
a determined patriot could face political overthrow. "This