ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 157 



weapon seemed to be put into the hands of the opposi- 

 tion by the necessity under which the administration 

 found itself of applying this old truth to new relations. 

 Nor were the opposition his only nor his most dangerous 

 opponents. 



The Republicans had carried the country upon an 

 issue in which ethics were more directly and visibly 

 mingled with politics than usual. Their leaders were 

 trained to a method of oratory which relied for its ef- 

 fect rather on the moral sense than the understanding. 

 Their arguments were drawn, not so much from experi- 

 ence as from general principles of right and wrong. 

 When the war came, their system continued to be ap- 

 plicable and effective, for here again the reason of the 

 people was to be reached and kindled through their sen- 

 timents. It was one of those periods of excitement, 

 gathering, contagious, universal, which, while they last, 

 exalt and clarify the minds of men, giving to the mere 

 words country, human rights, democracy, a meaning and 

 a force beyond that of sober and logical argument. 

 They were convictions, maintained and defended by the 

 supreme logic of passion. That penetrating fire ran in 

 and roused those primary instincts that make their lair 

 in the dens and caverns of the mind. What is called 

 the great popular heart was awakened, that indefinable 

 something which may be, according to circumstances, 

 the highest reason or the most brutish unreason. But 

 enthusiasm, once cold, can never be warmed over into 

 anything better than cant, — and phrases, when once 

 the inspiration that filled them with beneficent power 

 has ebbed away, retain only that semblance of meaning 

 which enables them to supplant reason in hasty minds. 

 Among the lessons taught by the French Revolution 

 there is none sadder or more striking than this, that you 

 may make everything else out of the passions of men 



