48 Latitude and Longitude 



Abraham Lincoln when he was running for re-elec 

 tion to the Presidency. The men entering this move 

 ment represented all extremes, moral and mental. 

 Nominally they opposed Lincoln because they did 

 not feel that he had gone far enough in what they 

 deemed the right direction, had not been sufficiently 

 extreme, and they objected to what they styled his 

 opportunism, his tendency to compromise, his tem 

 porizing conduct, and his being a practical politician. 

 In reality, of course, their opposition to Lincoln 

 was conditioned, not upon what Lincoln had done, 

 but upon their own natures. They were incapable 

 of supporting a great constructive statesman in a 

 great crisis ; and this, not because they were too vir 

 tuous, but because they lacked the necessary common- 

 sense and power of subordination of self to enable 

 them to work disinterestedly with others for the 

 common good. Their movement, however, proved 

 utterly abortive, and they had no effect even for evil. 

 The sound, wholesome common-sense of the Ameri 

 can people fortunately renders such movements, as 

 a rule, innocuous; and this is, in reality, the prime 

 reason why republican government prospers in 

 America, as it does not prosper, for instance, in 

 France. With us these little knots of impracticables 

 have an insignificant effect upon the national life, 

 and no representation to speak of in our govern 

 mental assemblies. In France, where the nation has 



