stand, and Christ and reason say the same, and they will find it so.

"Douglas don't care whether slavery is voted up or down, but God cares, and humanity cares and I care, and with God's help I shall not fail. I may not see the end; but it will come, and I shall be vindicated, and these men will find they have not read their Bible right.” “I think more upon these subjects," he added, "than upon all others, and I have done so for years."

Lincoln expressly stated on this occasion that he was not (technically) a Christian. At another time he said that when any church would inscribe over its altar, as the sole qualification for membership, the succinct summary of the commandments given by Jesus"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy might, and thy neighbour as thyself" he would join that church with all his heart and soul.

So little was Lincoln known in the Eastern States that, at the first, his nomination had generally been regarded there, as a renunciation by the party leaders of all ideals for the sake of mere availability. In this they were of course mistaken. Lincoln was a saner politician than his great rivals, but he was a man whose moral conviction was as much profounder than Seward's, as his human sympathies were broader than those of Chase. When Douglas heard of the nomination, he said truly, that his party had nominated a very able and a very honest man. In his words to Senator Wilson, he described Lincoln, as "one of the ablest men of the nation. I have been in Congress sixteen years, and there is not a man in the Senate I would not rather encounter in debate."

The Presidential Campaign, conducted on all sides

with great spirit, came to a conclusion on the 6th November.1 There were four candidates, for not only were the Democrats divided into Northern and Southern Sections, but a new Constitutional Union party, which deprecated the whole slavery discussion, had sprung up. Douglas had broken the conventions of a presidential election, making an extraordinary personal canvass, unique in its character, contending as a Unionist against both Republicans and Secessionists with equal earnestness, in nearly every one of the States.

When the poll was declared he had secured strong popular support in all the Western and Middle States, but owing to the presence of four candidates, he had been unable to win the full Electoral vote of any but Missouri: while Breckinridge and Bell, whose combined popular support hardly exceeded Douglas's, received between them the Electoral vote of the fourteen Southern States. Lincoln on the other hand, carried all the eighteen Northern States, except New Jersey, whose vote was divided between him and Douglas; receiving a total vote of 1,866,452 as against Douglas's 1,375,157.

Much has been made of the undisputed fact that Lincoln was elected by a minority of the American people; by less than two million out of the four and a half million votes cast. But the other fact remains, that no rival candidate could, under the political circumstances of the time, have received all the votes distributed between Douglas, Breckinridge and Bell. Had the Democratic party held together, it might conceivably have combined the votes of Douglas and

1 It is interesting to recall that King Edward, then Prince of Wales, visited America in October, accompanied by the Duke of Newcastle.

Breckinridge as it was Douglas was supported in the North because he denounced Breckinridge, and vice versa. Any readjustment of parties upon such lines would probably have given the bulk of Bell's votes to the Republican. Even in the extreme case, however, if one candidate had received all the votes cast against Lincoln, Lincoln would still have been chosen by the preponderant Electoral vote of the fifteen Northern States which gave him absolute majorities. And in any other case-that is to say if the nation had voted for or against the issue of slavery obscured both by Douglas and Bell-he would doubtless have secured a Popular majority as well as an Electoral one; for the Southern vote given to Breckinridge and Bell was not quite half as large as the Northern for Lincoln and Douglas; neither group of candidates receiving any considerable support in any but their own geographical section. But whatever one may calculate, as to hypothetical probabilities, Lincoln was elected. And of that result Longfellow truly wrote, "it is the redemption of the country."

Chapter IX

President Lincoln

Lincoln's Responsibility-Interregnum-Cabinet Making-Farewell to Springfield-First Inaugural-An Ultimatum-Westerners and the Union-Lincoln and Secession-His Qualities of Leadership--His Appearance.

LINCOLN'S election was greeted with delight by others than his own supporters. The slavery men had come to distrust Douglas, while the choice of a Republican President was to be the signal for secession which South Carolina and her confederates were awaiting.

Lincoln, though he seems still to have regarded the Southern menace as consisting principally of bluster, must have realised more profoundly than he ever betrayed, the elements of tragedy underlying his triumph.

He had been confused, and even dazed, by the wild intoxication of enthusiasm evinced from time to time in his presence by his supporters. When the great Republican mass-meeting was held in Springfield, he had escaped hurriedly from its applause and had sought solitude. He sank frequently into profound dejection and melancholy now that the victory was won; a responsibility too heavy to be borne seemed to have fallen upon him. A friend describes him as

sadder now, "more abstracted and absent-minded, more humble, more subdued, apparently humiliated"; and sometimes, "sorrowful even unto death."

A curious illustration of the occult element in his nature is found in a story belonging to this period. It was after the nervous strain and tension of election day that he flung himself down exhausted on a couch in his room. There was a mirror opposite to him, and as he glanced at it he was startled to see there a double reflection of his face. When he sprang up to look more closely, it vanished, but appeared again as he lay down once more. It began to jar on his tired nerves: he could not rest and went away.

The thing puzzled him, less perhaps in itself, than because of the feeling he could not escape that it had some significance. The two faces had been distinct, one paler than the other, seeming like a sort of ghost. Once again a few days later he saw it, but after that, although he made many experiments, he could not recall the double image. His wife, who seems to have been interested in the occult, was even more impressed than he. She is said to have read into it an omen that he would be re-elected to the presidency, and die during his second term.

As he saw further and further into the mysterious destiny of the people who had now chosen him to execute their will, a "preternatural expression of exquisite grief" dwelt in his dark grey eyes. "I shall never be glad any more," he used to say.

For the

Indeed, he had good grounds for this melancholy— beyond those of which he was fully aware. conspiracy of the slave-power was also matured. There were still four months before Lincoln could take