Such is the story of what we may now remember as one of the signal events in the chequered progress of Christianity.  We have to follow its consequences a little further.  These were not at first all that its author would have hoped.  “Commendation in newspapers and by distinguished individuals is,” he said in a private letter, “all that a vain man could wish,” but recruits for the Army did not seem to come in faster.  In October and November there were elections for Congress, and in a number of States the Democrats gained considerably, though it was noteworthy that the Republicans held their ground not only in New England and in the furthest Western States, but also in the border slave States.  The Democrats, who from this time on became very formidable to Lincoln, had other matters of complaint, as will be seen later, but they chiefly denounced the President for trying to turn the war into one against slavery.  “The Constitution as it is and the Union as it was” had been their election cry.  The good hearing that they got, now as at a later time, was due to the fact that people were depressed about the war; and it is plain enough that Lincoln had been well advised in delaying his action till after a military success.  As it was, there was much that seemed to show that public confidence in him was not strong, but public confidence in any man is hard to estimate, and the forces that in the end move opinion most are not quickly apparent.  There are little indications that his power and character were slowly establishing their hold; it seems, for instance, to have been about this time that “old Abe” or “Uncle Abe” began to be widely known among common people by the significant name of “Father Abraham,” and his secretaries say that he was becoming conscious that his official utterances had a deeper effect on public opinion than any immediate response to them in Congress showed.

In his Annual Message of December, 1862, Lincoln put before Congress, probably with little hope of result, a comprehensive policy for dealing with slavery justly and finally.  He proposed that a Constitutional Amendment should be submitted to the people providing:  first, that compensation should be given in United States bonds to any State, whether now in rebellion or not, which should abolish slavery before the year 1900; secondly, that the slaves who had once enjoyed actual freedom through the chances of the war should be permanently free and that their owners should be compensated; thirdly, that Congress should have authority to spend money on colonisation for negroes.  Even if the greater part of these objects could have been accomplished without a Constitutional Amendment, it is evident that such a procedure would have been more satisfactory in the eventual resettlement of the Union.  He urged in his Message how desirable it was, as a part of the effort to restore the Union, that the whole North should be agreed in a concerted policy as to slavery, and that parties should for this purpose