of the Vindictives by disgracing Seward.  Seward had a following which Lincoln needed.  But to proclaim to the world his confidence in Seward without at the same time offsetting it by some display of confidence, equally significant in the enemies of Seward, this would have amounted to committing himself to Seward’s following alone.  And that would not do.  Should either faction appear to dominate him, Lincoln felt that “the whole government must cave in.  It could not stand, could not hold water; the bottom would be out."(13)

The incredible stroke of luck, the sheer good fortune that Chase was Chase and nobody else,—­vain, devious, stagey and hypersensitive,—­was salvation.  Lincoln promptly rejected both resignations and called upon both Ministers to resume their portfolios.  They did so.  The incident was closed.  Neither faction could say that Lincoln had favored the other.  He had saved himself, or rather, Chase’s character had saved him, by the margin of a hair.

For the moment, a rebuilding of the Vindictive Coalition was impossible.  Nevertheless, the Jacobins, again balked of their prey, had it in their power, through the terrible Committee, to do immense mischief.  The history of the war contains no other instance of party malice quite so fruitless and therefore so inexcusable as their next move.  After severely interrogating Burnside, they published an exoneration of his motives and revealed the fact that Lincoln had forced him into command against his will.  The implication was plain.

January came in.  The Emancipation Proclamation was confirmed.  The jubilation of the Abolitionists became, almost at once, a propaganda for another issue upon slavery.  New troubles were gathering close about the President The overwhelming benefit which had been anticipated from the new policy had not clearly arrived.  Even army enlistments were not satisfactory.  Conscription loomed on the horizon as an eventual necessity.  A bank of returning cloud was covering the political horizon, enshrouding the White House in another depth of gloom.

However, out of all this gathering darkness, one clear light solaced Lincoln’s gaze.  One of his chief purposes had been attained.  In contrast to the doubtful and factional response to his policy at home, the response abroad was sweeping and unconditional.  He had made himself the hero of the “Liberal party throughout the world.”  Among the few cheery words that reached him in January, 1863, were New Year greetings of trust and sympathy sent by English working men, who, because of the blockade, were on the verge of starvation.  It was in response to one of these letters from the working men of Manchester that Lincoln wrote: