shake off this mysterious weight under which he seemed bowed; his generous and open disposition would again reappear. In one evening I happened to count over twenty of these alternations and contrasts."

One of the last acts of the year 1863 showed the President's never sleeping wish for leniency. To his annual message to Congress he added, unexpectedly to everybody, a proclamation granting amnesty to all rebels, barring certain classes, who would take a simple oath to support the Constitution, the Union, and the legislation and proclamations concerning slavery. By the same proclamation one-tenth of the voters in a seceded state were given the right, after taking and keeping the oath, to reëstablish a state government. Almost immediately Congress showed displeasure at the President's undertaking reconstruction alone, it being uncertain which branch of the government had the better right to accomplish that duty. Naturally also many people felt sternness where Lincoln felt none. His constant desire for compensation to the slaveholders may be contrasted with the sentiment voiced even by so gentle a soul as Emerson:

"Pay ransom to the owner,

Ay, fill it up to the brim !

Who is the owner? The slave is owner,

This moral indignation applied equally to reconstruction; but in the one case as in the other indignation was of a quality which to Lincoln's character was entirely foreign. Whatever he believed about the Christian religion, he practised as few others did some of the extreme Christian virtues. He very genuinely believed that the way to establish the new order of things without bitterness was to treat the vanquished rebel as if he were a beloved and trustworthy brother who had just been convinced in an argument. This state of mind, looked upon as impractical, did a good deal to add to the considerable opposition which existed, especially among politicians, to Lincoln's renomination in the following spring. The leader of the House of Representatives said that the President had but one political friend in that body. Lincoln, however, had his convictions fully ripened. Sometimes he felt sure of renomination, sometimes he saw little hope of it, but in either case his way lay clear before him. He could do the right, as it seemed clearly marked out before him, and silently endure whatever he could not remedy; but in the meantime he would "saw some wood." He would trust the great engine of sane public opinion, but he also knew when to put a little oil in it, and how to touch a spring here or tighten a screw there to make it work better. The his

tory of the next presidential campaign will be the story of destiny and justice grandly vindicating the work of the servant who, according to Emerson, had "been permitted to do more for America than any other American man"; but if correctly read it will also show that American statesman astutely and subterraneously guiding destiny to its just conclusion.

CHAPTER XV

RENOMINATION AND REËLECTION

AMONG the obstacles to Lincoln's renomination Secretary Chase reckoned himself a large one. He used his position as Secretary of the Treasury in every way he could to strengthen his own chances against those of the President. General Butler tells us that a friend of Chase offered him the nomination for vice-presidency on condition that Chase should win at the convention. The criticisms of the Secretary of the Treasury on the administration were unceasing and severe. His letters contain frank admissions that if the country shall look upon him as the ablest standard-bearer he will not dispute the choice. Senator Pomeroy brought matters to a head by issuing a circular calling for efforts by the friends of the Union who disapproved of the administration, to counteract the work being done for Lincoln's renomination. The President's reelection was stated to be practically impossible as well as undesirable, among other reasons on account of Lincoln's "tendency toward compromises and temporary expedients of policy." The

document also stated that the friends of Chase had already established conventions in all the states. The circular soon got into the press, and Chase saw that his only course was to resign, which he did. Lincoln replied that he would not allow himself to consider the question from any standpoint other than his judgment of the public service, and in that view he saw no occasion for a change. To his friend Raymond, whose omission of Chase's name hardly creates a doubt, he gave a rather more racy estimate of the situation:

"Raymond, you were brought up on a farm, were you not? Then you know what a chin-fly is. My brother and I were once ploughing corn on a farm, I driving the horse, and he holding plough. The horse was lazy, but on one occasion rushed across the fields so that I, with my long legs, could scarcely keep pace with him. On reaching the end of the furrow, I found an enormous chin-fly fastened upon him, and knocked him off. My brother asked me what I did that for. I told him I didn't want the old horse bitten in that way. 'Why,' said my brother, 'that's all that made him go.' Now, if Mr. has a presidential chin-fly biting him I am not going to knock him off, if it will only make his department go."

Chase's hopes came to an end in February, when his own state, Ohio, renominated Lincoln. That statesman's view of the result he has stated himself: