the South was undoubtedly in earnest in declaring that there could be no compromise without disunion.  Therefore, in those elections of the autumn months in 1862 the whole question of Union or Disunion had to be fought out at the polls in the loyal States, and there was an appalling chance of its going against the Unionist party.  “The administration,” says Mr. Blaine, “was now subjected to a fight for its life;” and for a while the fortunes of that mortal combat wore a most alarming aspect.

The Democracy made its fight on the ground that the anti-slavery legislation of the Republican majority in the Thirty-seventh Congress had substantially made abolition the ultimate purpose of the war.  Here, then, they said, was a change of base; were or were not the voters of the loyal States willing to ratify it?  Already this ground had been taken in the platforms of the party in the most important Northern States, before Mr. Lincoln issued his proclamation.  Was it unreasonable to fear that this latest and most advanced step would intensify that hostility, stimulate the too obvious reaction, and aggravate the danger which, against his judgment,[39] as it was understood, Congress had created?  Was it not probable that Mr. Blair was correct when he warned the President that the proclamation would “cost the administration the fall elections”?  Naturally it will be asked:  if this was a reasonable expectation, why did the President seize this critical moment to ally the administration with anti-slavery?  Mr. Blaine furnishes a probable explanation:  “The anti-slavery policy of Congress had gone far enough to arouse the bitter hostility of all Democrats, who were not thoroughly committed to the war, and yet not far enough to deal an effective blow against the institution.”  The administration stood at a point where safety lay rather in defying than in evading the ill opinion of the malcontents, where the best wisdom was to commit itself, the party, and the nation decisively to the “bold, far-reaching, radical, and aggressive policy,” from which it would be impossible afterward to turn back “without deliberately resolving to sacrifice our nationality.”  Presumably the President wished to show the people that their only choice now lay between slavery on the one hand and nationality on the other, so that, of the two things, they might take that one which they deemed the more worthy.  The two together they could never again have.  This theory tallies with the well-known fact that Mr. Lincoln was always willing to trust the people upon a question of right and wrong.  He never was afraid to stake his chance upon the faith that what was intrinsically right would prove in the long run to be politically safe.  While he was a shrewd politician in matters of detail, he had the wisdom always in a great question to get upon that side where the inherent morality lay.  Yet, unfortunately, it takes time—­time which cannot always be afforded—­for right to destroy prejudice; the slow-grinding mill of God grinds sometimes so slowly that man cannot help fearing that for once the stint will not be worked out; and in this autumn of 1862 there was one of these crises of painful anxiety among patriots at the North.