But the heavy weight on the Presidential mind came from the Free States, in which the Pro-Slavery party was so powerful, and the nature of the war was so little understood, that it was impossible for Government to strike an effective blow at the source of the enemy’s strength.  Before that could be done, it would be necessary that the Northern mind should be trained to justice in the school of adversity.  The position of the President in 1861 was not unlike to that which the Prince of Orange held in 1687.  Had William made his attempt on England in 1687, the end would have been failure as complete as that of Monmouth in 1685.  It was necessary that the English mind should be educated up to the point of throwing aside some cherished doctrines, the maintenance of which stood in the way of England’s safety, prosperity, and greatness.  William allowed the fruit he sought to ripen, and in 1688 he was able to do with ease that which no human power could have done in 1687.  So was it with Mr. Lincoln, and here.  Had the Proclamation lately put forth been issued in 1861, either it would have fallen dead, or it would have met with such opposition in the North as would have rendered it impossible to prosecute the war with any hope of success.  There would probably have been pronunciamientos from some of our armies, and the Union might have been shivered to pieces without the enemy’s lifting their hands further against it.  We do not say that such would have been the course of events, had the Proclamation then appeared, but it might have taken that turn; and the President had to allow for possibilities that perhaps it never occurred to private individuals to think of,—­men who had no sense of responsibility either to the country, to the national cause, or to the tribunal of history.  He would not move as he was advised to move by good men who had not taken into consideration all the circumstances of the case, and who could not feel as he was forced to feel because he was President of the United States.  Probably, if he had been a private citizen, he would have been the foremost man of the Emancipation party; but the place he holds is so high that he must look over the whole land, and necessarily he sees much that others can never behold.  He saw that one of two things would happen in a few months after the beginning of active warfare, toward the close of last winter:  either the Rebels would be beaten in the field, in which event there would be reasonable hope of the Union’s reconstruction, and the people could then take charge of slavery, and settle its future condition as to them should seem best,—­or our armies would be beaten, and the people would be made to understand that slavery could no longer be allowed to exist for the support of an enemy who had announced from the beginning of their war-movement that their choice was fixed upon conquest, or, failing that, annihilation.