Let us diligently apply the means, never doubting that a
just God, in his own good time, will give us the rightful result.
Yours very truly,
A. LINCOLN.
This was a fair statement of past facts and of the present condition;
and thus the plain tokens of the time showed that the menace of
disaffection had been met and sufficiently conquered. The President had
let the nation see the strength of his will and the immutability of his
purpose. He had faced bullying Republican politicians, a Democratic
reaction, Copperheadism, and mob violence, and by none of these had he
been in the least degree shaken or diverted from his course. On the
contrary, from so many and so various struggles he had come out the
victor, a real ruler of the country. He had shown that whenever and by
whomsoever, and in whatever part of the land he was pushed to use power,
he would use it. Temporarily the great republic was under a "strong
government," and Mr. Lincoln was the strength. Though somewhat cloaked
by forms, there was for a while in the United States a condition of
"one-man power," and the people instinctively recognized it, though they
would on no account admit it in plain words. In fact every malcontent
knew that there was no more use in attempting to resist the American
President than in attempting to resist a French emperor or a Russian
czar; there was even less use, for while the President managed on one
plausible ground or another to have and to exercise all the power that
he needed, he was sustained by the good-will and confidence of a
majority of the people, which lay as a solid substratum beneath all the
disturbance on the surface.
Pages:
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220