As the hope of a speedy victory and an easy settlement vanished, wide differences of opinion appeared again in the North, and the lines on which this cleavage proceeded very soon showed themselves.  There were those who gladly welcomed the idea of a crusade against slavery, and among them was an unreasonable section of so-called Radicals.  These resented that delay in a policy of wholesale liberation which was enforced by legal and constitutional scruples, and by such practical considerations as the situation in the slave States which adhered to the North.  There was, on the other hand, a Democratic party Opposition which before long began to revive.  It combined many shades of opinion.  There were supporters or actual agents of the South, few at first and very quiet, but ultimately developing a treasonable activity.  There were those who constituted themselves the guardians of legality and jealously criticised all the measures of emergency which became more or less necessary.  Of the bulk of the Democrats it would probably be fair to say that their conscious intention throughout was to be true to the Union, but that throughout they were beset by a respect for Southern rights which would have gone far to paralyse the arm of the Government.  Lastly, there were Republicans, by no means in sympathy with the Democratic view, who became suspect to their Radical fellows and were vaguely classed together as Conservatives.  This term may be taken to cover men simply of moderate and cautious, or in some cases, of variable disposition, but it included, too, some men who, while rigorous against the South, were half-hearted in their detestation of slavery.

So far as Lincoln’s private opinions were concerned, it would have been impossible to rank him in any of these sections.  He had as strong a sympathy with the Southern people as any Democrat, but he was for the restoration of the Union absolutely and without compromise.  He was the most cautious of men, but his caution veiled a detestation of slavery of which he once said that he could not remember the time when he had not felt it.  It was his business, so far as might be, to retain the support of all sections in the North to the Union.  In the course, full of painful deliberation, which we shall see him pursuing, he tried to be guided by a two-fold principle which he constantly avowed.  The Union was to be restored with as few departures from the ways of the Constitution as was possible; but such departures became his duty whenever he was thoroughly convinced that they were needful for the restoration of the Union.