ap Mr.
Lincoln into taking part in a meeting where this was to be done. Mr.
Lincoln refused to attend, and instead wrote a letter of such hearty and
generous approval of Grant and his army that the meeting naturally fell
into the hands of Mr. Lincoln's friends. General Grant, never at that
time or any other, gave the least encouragement to the efforts which
were made to array him against the President. Mr. Lincoln, on his part,
received all warnings to beware of Grant in the most serene manner,
saying tranquilly, "If he takes Richmond, let him have it." It was not
so with General Fremont. At a poorly attended meeting held in Cleveland
he was actually nominated by a handful of people calling themselves
the "Radical Democracy," and taking the matter seriously, accepted,
although, three months later, having found no response from the public,
he withdrew from the contest.

After all, these various attempts to discredit the name of Abraham
Lincoln caused hardly a ripple on the great current of public opinion,
and death alone could have prevented his choice by the Republican
national convention. He took no measures to help on his own candidacy.
With strangers he would not talk about the probability of his
reelection; but with friends he made no secret of his readiness to
continue the work he was engaged in if such should be the general wish.
"A second term would be a great honor and a great labor; which together,
perhaps, I would not decline," he wrote to one of them. He discouraged
officeholders, either civil or military, who showed any special zeal in
his behalf. To General Schurz, who wrote asking permission to take an
active part in the campaign for his reelection, he answered: "I perceive
no objection to your making a political speech when you are where one is
to be made; but quite surely, speaking in the North and fighting in the
South at the same time are not possible, nor could I be justified to
detail any officer to the political campaign... and then return him to
the army."

He himself made no long speeches during the summer, and in his short
addresses, at Sanitary Fairs, in answer to visiting delegations, and
on similar occasions where custom and courtesy obliged him to say a few
words, he kept his quiet ease and self-command, speaking heartily and
to the point, yet avoiding all the pitfalls that beset the candidate who
talks.

When the Republican national convention came together in Baltimore on
June 7, 1864,