It seems now as though he could hardly have
done otherwise, or have fallen into the error of allying himself with
bygone or false issues. It may be admitted that he could not have passed
this new one by; but the important matter was that of proportion and
relation, and in this it was easy to blunder. In truth it was a crisis
when blundering was so easy that nearly all the really able men of the
North had been doing it badly for three or four months past, and not a
few of them were going to continue it for two or three months to come.
Therefore the sound conception of the inaugural deserves to be
considered as an indication, one among many, of Lincoln's capacity for
seeing with entire distinctness the great main fact, and for recognizing
it as such. Other matters, which lay over and around such a fact, side
issues, questions of detail, affairs of disguise or deception, never
confused or misled him. He knew with unerring accuracy where the biggest
fact lay, and he always anchored fast to it and stayed with it. For many
years he had been anchored to anti-slavery; now, in the face of the
nation, he shifted his anchorage to the Union; and each time he held
securely.
FOOTNOTES:
[114] Breckenridge was the legitimate representative of the
administrationists, and his ticket received only 847,953 votes out of
4,680,193. Douglas and Buchanan were at open war.
[115] See remarks of Mr.
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