said the President, "would be disunion completed. Figuratively speaking, it would be the building of an impassable wall along the line of separation — and yet not quite an impassable one, for under the guise of neutrality it would tie the hands of Union men and freely pass supplies from among them to the insurrectionists, which it could not do as an open enemy. . . . It recognizes no fidelity to the Constitution, no obligation to maintain the Union; and while very many who have favored it are doubtless loyal citizens, it is, nevertheless, very injurious in effect." He explained shortly his reasons on habeas corpus, rejoiced in the more favorable attitude of foreign powers, and requested at least 400,000 men and $400,000,000. "A right result at this time will be worth more to the world than ten times the money."

He then went again fully into the principle of secession, adding nothing new, but putting his firmness unmistakably before the country. One incident connected with this passage is too characteristic of the President to omit. Speaking of the "sophism" of peaceable withdrawal from the Union, he said, "With rebellion thus sugar-coated they have been drugging the public mind of their section for more than thirty years." When, according to Lamon, the document was put in the hands of the public printer, who happened to be

a friend of Lincoln, he hurried to the President and told him that "sugar-coated," which might do before a mass-meeting in Illinois, would not be good taste in a message to the Congress of the United States, a message which would become part of the public history of the country. Lincoln laughed and replied: "That term expresses precisely my idea, and I am not going to change it. Sugar-coated' must stand. The time will never come in this country when the people will not understand exactly what 'sugar-coated' means."

Toward the end of the message appeared this significant statement. "This is essentially a people's contest.

On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men— to lift artificial weights from all shoulders. . I am most happy to believe that the plain people understand and appreciate this. It is worthy of note that while in this, the government's time of trial, large numbers of those in the army and navy who had been favored with the offices have resigned and proved false to the hand which had pampered them, not one common soldier or common sailor is known to have deserted his flag."

CHAPTER XI

THE NEW PRESIDENT'S TACT

FOR a time the President was allowed to go through the ordinary course of his duties with no great shock of either success or disaster, although the cry " "On to Richmond!" ringing in his ears taught him that a forward movement before long was a political necessity. He found Congress giving him 500,000 men where he had asked for 400,000 and $500,000,000 where he asked for $400,000,000. He felt the North strongly behind him, but to keep it so, and to win the doubtful states, it was imperative that he keep in touch with the politicians and the people. Much of his time went to this, but he found hours to go out and test new guns himself, to examine balloons for war purposes, to listen to inventors of every sort. He met every problem, every emergency, that offered itself, and he remained the simple Westerner. He was forced occasionally to change his appearance slightly for official occasions, but throughout his term the utterly popular nature of his life and manners never lessened. of the White House as "this place."

He spoke

He often

went to see his cabinet officials where another would have called them to him. Joke books stood piled up on his miscellaneous work-table with papers of State. While a long line of people were waiting to shake hands with him

stopped one man for

at a public reception, he several minutes while he extracted in whispers the point of a story which he imperfectly remembered. He read much in "Recollections of A. Ward, Showman," "Flush Time in Alabama,' "Petroleum V. Nasby's Letters." While his head was full of military plans and political details, he talked about Shakespeare and recited the King's Speech in Hamlet, "Oh my offence is rank," from memory, or anon went about saying in a sing

"Mortal man, with face of clay,
Here to-morrow, gone to-day."

Life was responsibility, tragedy, burlesque, to him. He took the machine as he found it. He found great problems of State, foreign complications, questions of warlike strategy, politicians and their tricks, widows and their sorrows, old friends and Illinois jokes; and he mixed them all in his daily life, and responded to all, smelling of the Western prairie's soil, hard sense and no "frills.”

At one time John Ganson of Buffalo, who was perfectly bald, called on Lincoln and said: "We are voting and acting in the dark in Congress,

and I demand to know what is the present situation; what are the prospects and conditions of the several campaigns and armies. "Ganson," said the President, gazing at the top of his head, "how clean you shave."

A member of Congress from Ohio came into his presence inebriate, and, knowing Lincoln's fondness for a certain poem, sank into a chair and exclaimed: "Oh, why should (hic) er spirit of mortal be proud?"

My dear sir,” replied the President, “I see no reason whatever."

A New Jersey congressman introduced two friends to him, saying "they are among the weightiest men in southern New Jersey." When they had gone Lincoln said, "I wonder that end of the state didn't tip up when they got off of it." Lord Lyons, the British minister, presented to him an autograph letter from Queen Victoria, announcing, in the usual royal manner, a marriage in her family, and added that whatever response the President would make he would immediately transmit to his royal mistress. Shaking the document at the bachelor minister, Lincoln exclaimed: "Go, thou, and do likewise."

The Austrian minister introduced a Count who wished a position in the Federal army. Although after such an introduction no further recommendation was called for, the nobleman rather elabo