State conventions, caucuses, of all sizes and kinds, and gatherings of
the Republican members of state legislatures, overstepped their regular
functions to declare for the renomination of Mr. Lincoln. Clubs and
societies did the same. Simon Cameron, transmitting to the President a
circular of this purport, signed by every Unionist member of the
Pennsylvania legislature, said: "Providence has decreed your
reelection;" and if it is true that the _vox populi_ is also the _vox
Dei_, this statement of the political affiliations of Providence was
entirely correct. Undoubtedly the number of the President's adherents
was swelled by some persons who would have been among the disaffected
had they not been influenced by the reflection that a change of
administration in the present condition of things must be disastrous.
This feeling was expressed in many metaphors, but in none other so
famous as that uttered by Mr. Lincoln himself: that it was not wise to
swap horses while crossing the stream. The process was especially
dangerous in a country where the change would involve a practical
interregum of one third of a year. The nation had learned this lesson,
and had paid dearly enough for the schooling, too, in the four months of
its waiting to get rid of Buchanan, after it had discredited him and all
his ways. In the present crisis it was easy to believe that to leave Mr.
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