246 



DISCOVERY 



cation to the South, though it w.is often a matter of 

 delicate discernment to avoid both. In the earher part 

 of the war he held the North together by holding the 

 balance between tho.-e who could fight only for the 

 Union and the crusaders against slavery. He changed 

 the character of the war from one merely for Union 

 into one for emancipation also at precisely the right 

 moment. Thereafter he was equally firm in refusing 

 any compromise of the principles at stake through 

 entanghng negotiations with the South, and in dis- 

 countenancing any spirit of revenge in the treatment of 

 the reconquered States. Such a course might be said 

 to coincide with the course of that sane public opinion 

 which is apt eventually to prevail under popular 

 government, but it would be absurd now to ascribe it. 

 as a distinguished Illinois contemporary of Lincoln's, 

 Senator Lyman Trumbull, ascribed it, to his being 

 " a follower and not a leader in public affairs," " a 

 trimmer, and such a trimmer as the world has never 

 seen." To begin with, no man, not independently 

 anxious for himself to see what is right and do it, has 

 ever j'et succeeded in conforming to the hidden move- 

 ments of sane public opinion. But in Lincoln's case 

 a close study of his hfe shows that his attitude was the 

 result of principles thought out beforehand with rare 

 thoroughness and consistency. 



It is easy to glean and summarise those principles 

 from his speeches, mainly made before his Presidency. 

 They involved no moral lukewarmness about slavery ; 

 his hatred of it was none the less passionate because in 

 practice he was restrained by regard for the Union. 

 The Union of America was dear to him, because it repre- 

 sented the only great experiment so far made in popular 

 government, a great country governed " till recently " 

 by a " central idea," of " steady and progressive effort 

 towards the practical equcdity of all men." It was 

 compatible with loyalty to this " central idea," apart 

 from which he could take no real pride in his country, 

 that the strictest regard should be paid to the legal 

 rights which, from the necessities of their case, the 

 founders of the Constitution had conceded to the 

 slave-owners of the South. But there was danger of 

 going further than this, by allowing slavery to be lawful 

 where it was not already protected by the Constitution, 

 and by conceding in jsrinciple that slavery was in itself 

 justifiable, or (even worse) that it was a matter of 

 indifference. Such a policy was to be resisted at all 

 costs, and at any risk to the Union and the existence of 

 the country. If, on the other hand, slavery were placed 

 in such a position that it could not be extended into 

 fresh territory, and that the law and declared opinion of 

 the Union as a whole marked it as wrong in itself, 

 economic and moral causes would force the Southern 

 States to abolish it for themselves in time. Till then 

 any reckless attack on their constitutional rights would 



lead to the extinction in mere lawlessness of the 

 American experiment in popular government. These 

 beliefs, clearly set out in his earlier speeches on the 

 subject, governed every important action of Lincoln's, 

 from his first participation in the conflict in 1854 till 

 the course of the war had altered the whole situation. 

 Ultimately the blow which was to kill slavery, and 

 which he seems vaguely to have dreamt of as a youth, 

 became in his opinion, as a great lawyer, no breach of 

 the Constitution, but a lawful and necessary act of 

 war in defence of the Constitution. Thereupon he 

 struck that blow. There can seldom have been in all 

 history a statesman whose course was so well thought 

 out on grounds of the profoundest political philosophy 

 or so tenaciously pursued. We can repeat, in a very 

 different sense from that which was first intended, the 

 words of his sometime local rival, " Such a trimmer as 

 the world has never seen." 



But there is yet more to be said of that attitude of 

 mind and heart which distinguished Lincoln equally 

 from the ordinary Abolitionist and from the indifferent 

 time-server. His principles were not only clearly 

 worked out, they were envisaged by him in their true 

 concrete application to individuals of flesh and blood. 



Most men, who could have said with him, " if slavery 

 is not WTong, nothing is WTong," and who could have 

 exposed, like him, with bitter humour the half -sincere 

 apologies for the system, would have been carried, at 

 least when it came to war, into hatred of the Southern 

 slave-owners. But to Lincoln the guilt of the system 

 seemed not specially theirs ; it attached in some sense 

 to all their countrymen, even in a degree to himself. 

 To him it was easy, while insisting with iron rigour on 

 the complete conquest and uiireserved submission of 

 the South, to set his foot down on any kind of suggested 

 vengeance, and to preach " we must extinguish our 

 resentments " as the first principle of reconstruction 

 after the war, a principle which far less resolute up- 

 holders of the war failed to grasp. 



Most men, again, in fiercely contending against a 

 wrong like slavery, would have nursed illusions as to the 

 kind of equality with the white of which the black man 

 was capable, and the benefits which would necessarily 

 flow from liberation. It was not so with Lincoln. He 

 was perfectly well aware of the frequent helplessness of 

 the newly liberated people and the congenital weak- 

 nesses of the African. He foresaw the disruption of 

 society and the suffering to black as well as white which 

 war and emancipation would together produce in the 

 South, and he laboured, though in vain, to prevent it. 

 It is well known that he died before he could take any 

 effective steps towards reconstruction in the South, 

 but not before he had given outlines and hints of a 

 policy by which the squalid agony of the years which 

 followed would probably ha\e been much lessened had 



