Ii8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



was its only real enemy, should demand a decided policy 

 round which all patriots might rally \ and this might have 

 been the wisest course for an absolute ruler. But in the 

 then unsettled state of the public mind, with a large party 

 decrying even resistance to the slaveholders rebellion as 

 not only unwise, but even unlawful ; with a majority, per 

 haps, even of the would-be loyal so long accustomed to 

 regard the Constitution as a deed of gift conveying to the 

 South their own judgment as to policy and instinct as to 

 right, that they were in doubt at first whether their loyalty 

 were due to the country or to slavery ; and with a respect 

 able body of honest and influential men who still believed 

 in the possibility of conciliation, Mr. Lincoln judged 

 wisely, that, in laying down a policy in deference to one 

 party, he should be giving to the other the very fulcrum for 

 which their disloyalty had been waiting. 



It behoved a clear-headed man in his position not to yield 

 so far to an honest indignation against the brokers of treason 

 in the North as to lose sight of the materials for misleading 

 which were their stock in trade, and to forget that it is not 

 the falsehood of sophistry which is to be feared, but the 

 grain of truth mingled with it to make it specious, that it 

 is not the knavery of the leaders so much as the honesty of 

 the followers they may seduce, that gives them power for 

 evil. It was especially his duty to do nothing which might 

 help the people to forget the true cause of the war in 

 fruitless disputes about its inevitable consequences. 



The doctrine of State rights can be so handled by an 

 adroit demagogue as easily to confound the distinction 

 between liberty and lawlessness in the minds of ignorant 

 persons, accustomed always to be influenced by the sound 

 of certain words, rather than to reflect upon the principles 

 which give; them meaning. For, though Secession involves 

 the manifest absurdity of denying to a State the right of 

 making war against any foreign Power while permitting it 

 against the United States ; though it supposes a compact of 

 mutual concessions and guaranties among States without 

 any arbiter in case of dissension- though it contradicts 



