210 



DISCOVERY 



1861, and \dthin a few weeks the forces of the new 

 Confederacy bombarded a fort at a Southern harbour 

 which was held by the Union troops. The war which 

 followed was just being brought to an end when 

 Lincoln, after being again elected, was assassinated, 

 in April 1S65. It must be noted : first, that, while 

 the whole South was devoted in maintaining its right 

 to independence, slavery was avowedly the only 

 cause for which the majority had chosen to exercise 

 that right ; secondly, that, while every shade of 

 opinion as to slavery existed in the North, there was 

 unanimity at first in declaring that the South had 

 no right and ought not to be allowed to secede. 



The reputation of Abraham Lincoln has grown in 

 the fifty-five years since his death in a remarkable 

 degree. This is partly the result of the disclosure 

 from time to time of facts showing the inner history of 

 his administration, and partly because the main 

 features of his statesmanship can now be seen in truer 

 perspective. When his party chose him as their 

 candidate for the Presidency of the United States, it 

 was less from any general recognition of his merits 

 than from the antagonisms which had arisen to other 

 men better known and apparently better qualified 

 than he. One or two men of remarkable sympathy 

 and discernment, such as Motley and Lowell, saw 

 before long some great quality in him, but to most 

 people in the eastern States he continued for long to 

 seem a coarse frontiersman, while men of his own 

 State thought of him as just one of themselves. His 

 honesty of purpose and sincerity of utterance were 

 very soon recognised, but people associated them with 

 an artless simplicity, which was indeed the very 

 opposite of his subtle, far-seeing, and reticent char- 

 acter. 



The North sustained defeats in the war which were 

 the more humiliating because it was far the superior 

 in resources. It was natural to attribute this to feeble- 

 ness in the administration. Moreover, the Northern 

 people (not to speak of that minority among them in 

 whom any defect sufficed to bring out pacifist inclina- 

 tions) were deeply divided. There were those whose 

 support of the war was confined to a determination 

 that the Southern States should not break away from 

 the Union, especially in certain border States whose 

 adherence was essential to the North. There were 

 those to whom, civil strife having once arisen, it seemed 

 obvious that the war must be converted into a crusade 

 against slavery, since slavery was in itself detestable, 

 and was the whole cause of the war. Clearly under- 

 standing the point of view of both these sections, 

 Lincoln was bound by conviction and the necessities 

 of his position to hold aloof from both, take his own 

 course, and keep his own counsel. Therefore both 

 regarded him as a weak President. 



Then came his assassination in the hour of victory. 

 The pathos of this blended with the recollection of 

 his early hardships and struggles. Besides, the man's 

 own character had been surely gaining him sympathy. 

 After all, he had stood the racket of the war and won 

 through. He might have been weak, but he had 

 been brave and patient and self-effacing. Several of 

 his speeches were of the sort which might pass un- 

 noticed at the moment, but would recur and recur to 

 the mind as among the best-loved classics. And he 

 had a certain mystery and charm, a combination of 

 overflowing humour in his ordinary intercourse with 

 a deep and dignified melancholy detected even by 

 passers-by, such as grows and becomes haunting. 

 Above all, he had been infinitely merciful and kind. 

 So the memory of the tender-hearted conqueror 

 became dear to Americans, as typical of the best 

 element in their own nation, and as the memory of a 

 very great man, about whom it was a secondary ques- 

 tion whether he was really a great President. 



But he was a very great President, whose conduct 

 American statesmen long after, such as Colonel 

 Roosevelt and Mr. Taft, have studied closely and 

 treated as the supreme example of statecraft. And 

 his statesmanship lay so much in applying to great 

 affairs the wisdom and goodness of common life, and 

 his skill in office was so much of a piece with the 

 blended traits which make his strange personality 

 fascinating, that his character has an importance to 

 the world at large. It enhances his merits to remember 

 that he had all the temptations which arise from an 

 ambitious temperament, from a certain lax good- 

 nature, and from education in the petty ways of a 

 politician of the old school. 



We may first consider his conduct of the war. The 

 North had a terrible task before it in the conquest of 

 the vast and diihcult country of the South. There 

 was no general staff to advise Lincoln ; the North had 

 but few trained commanders, and at first none capable 

 of large operations ; untrained, unproved men had 

 to be encouraged and tried ; local influences and 

 popular pressure could not be ignored without disaster. 

 The South had at first a relatively" simple problem in 

 defending itself, and was singularly favoured with 

 military leaders. It is also plain now that Lincoln 

 wrestled with these diflicultics with wonderful patience, 

 but the complaints of particular officers against him, 

 and the legend of his unwise interference in military 

 matters, still colour the views of historians. The 

 whole question can be adequately tested by Lincoln's 

 controversy with General McLcllan, who in 1861-2 

 commanded the great armj- operating against the 

 Confederate capital Richmond, one hundred miles south 

 of Washington. Half the North rated Lincoln for 

 supporting this timid general so long as he did, but 



