Besides his temperament, other causes promoted this tranquillity.  What Mr. Lincoln would have been had his career fallen in ordinary times, amid commonplace political business, it is difficult to say.  The world never saw him as the advocate or assailant of a tariff, or other such affair.  From the beginning he had bound himself fast to a great moral purpose, which later became united with the preservation of the national life.  Having thus deliberately exercised his judgment in a question of this kind, he seemed ever after content to have intrusted his fortunes to the movement, and always to be free from any misgiving as to its happy conclusion.  Besides this, it is probable that he accurately measured the narrow limits of Mr. Chase’s strength.  No man ever more shrewdly read the popular mind.  A subtle line of communication seemed to run between himself and the people.  Nor did he know less well the politicians.  His less sagacious friends noted with surprise and anxiety that he let the work of opposition go on unchecked.  In due time, however, the accuracy of his foresight was vindicated; for when the secretary’s friends achieved a sufficient impetus they tumbled over, in manner following:—­

Mr. Pomeroy, senator from Kansas, was vindictive because the President had refused to take his side in certain quarrels between himself and his colleague.  Accordingly, early in 1864, he issued a circular, stating that the efforts making for Mr. Lincoln’s nomination required counter action on the part of those unconditional friends of the Union who disapproved the policy of the administration.  He said that Mr. Lincoln’s reelection was “practically impossible;” that it was also undesirable, on account of the President’s “manifest tendency towards compromises and temporary expedients of policy,” and for other reasons.  Therefore, he said, Mr. Chase’s friends had established “connections in all the States,” and now invited “the hearty cooeperation of all those in favor of the speedy restoration of the Union upon the basis of universal freedom.”  The document, designed to be secret, of course was quickly printed in the newspapers.[67] This was awkward; and Mr. Chase at once wrote to the President a letter, certainly entirely fair, in which he expressed his willingness to resign.  Mr. Lincoln replied kindly.  He said that he had heard of the Pomeroy circular, but had not read it, and did not expect to do so.  In fact, he said, “I have known just as little of these things as my friends have allowed me to know.”  As to the proposed resignation, that, he said, “is a question which I will not allow myself to consider from any standpoint other than my judgment of the public service, and in that view I do not perceive occasion for a change.”  There was throughout a quiet undertone of indifference to the whole business, which was significant enough to have puzzled the secretary, had he noticed it; for it was absolutely impossible that Mr. Lincoln should be really indifferent to dangerous