[63] Sherman, _Memoirs_, ii. 360.
CHAPTER IX
RENOMINATION
In a period of fervid political feeling it was natural that those
Republicans who were dissatisfied with President Lincoln should begin,
long before the close of his term of office, to seek consolation by
arrangements for replacing him by a successor more to their taste.
Expressions of this purpose became definite in the autumn of 1863. Mr.
Arnold says that the coming presidential election was expected to bring
grave danger, if not even anarchy and revolution.[64] Amid existing
circumstances, an opposition confined to the legitimate antagonism of
the Democracy would, of course, have brought something more than the
customary strain inherent in ordinary times in government by party; and
it was unfortunate that, besides this, an undue gravity was imported
into the crisis by the intestinal dissensions of the Republicans
themselves. It seemed by no means impossible that these disagreements
might give to the friends of peace by compromise a victory which they
really ought not to have. Republican hostility to Mr. Lincoln was
unquestionably very bitter in quality, whatever it might be in quantity.
It was based in part upon the discontent of the radicals and extremists,
in part upon personal irritation. In looking back upon those times there
is now a natural tendency to measure this opposition by the weakness
which it ultimately displayed when, later on, it was swept out of sight
by the overwhelming current of the popular will.
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