among many able, patriotic men in Washington City in this opening rebellion, no one of them, save Abraham Lincoln, could have united and held the hosts of valiant men in the broken and separating Nation.

This movement, forcing the conspirators to strike the flag when defended only by the regular forces of the Government, before any volunteers had been called, resulted, as he had seen, in the instant condemnation of the act. There was an immediate obliteration of party lines, and the Union was sustained by all loyal people on the simple basis of defending it against all its foes.

At

The exercise of the higher powers of the mind, or the genius courageously and successfully to conduct, direct, and manage fleets and armies through campaigns in war and statecraft, is defined and described in the single word strategy. It is a gift of God to very few in great emergencies. When the gifted leader uses this Divine power at its best, in part or in whole, he must set himself about it in the most diligent and persevering way, to the study of courses, systems, and facts, gathering all the knowledge in general and in detail belonging to the subject and his undertaking in its broadest and most comprehensive sense. his inauguration, Mr. Lincoln was not without the ordinary information of men of his acquirements and standing concerning wars, conflicts, military and naval affairs; but he saw at once the necessity of more and better knowledge on all these subjects. He grasped the idea for more particular and thorough study that he might understand for himself the proper course and conduct of war. He began his investigation with the diligence and ambition he had when he used to walk four miles to the justice's office to read and study the statutes of Indiana and the attached Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the old Articles of Confederation.

In the zeal of a beginner he took up the geography,

topography, the water-courses, and other physical features of our country, the boundaries, the States and Territories, the smaller community divisions and their conditions, their relations to each other as well as the relation of our own to other countries. He learned all he could of the independent governments, possessions, and dependencies of our continent, of our rivers, lakes, bays, inlets, and coast-lines on every ocean, gulf, and harbor, their means of defense, or their want of them, including all there was of commerce and navigation, their relation with the shipping and railways then in use.

He took up the subject of products and the means of subsistence, the areas of crops, their kinds and uses, the areas of swamps, infertile, waste, and barren lands, the timber growth, mountains, and ranges, valleys, openings, gaps, and roads through them; our plains, their roads and highways, and especially the physical features of the big river, the Mississippi, its valleys, shore-lines, towns, and people, as he had never before thought necessary. Then he examined the settled regions, population, and the particular character and inclinations of their inhabitants, their industries, their industrial progress, their products and facilities for life and liberty, their prospects, capacities, and needs, and the climatic and hygienic conditions, tendencies, and peculiarities of the people in every section.

He found time amid his never-ceasing and perplexing zeal to carry on this study into the endless fields of nature, the industrial pursuits and the course and progress of our people in them, until he was up to and abreast of the skilled and learned leaders or strategists in their several lines of duty. He entertained intelligently, discussed, and considered any subject, duty, or necessity with Farragut, Dupont, Ericsson, Foote, Worden, Porter, or Winslow, what there was of river, harbor, and sea maneuvering or sailing, defense, and conflict. He did the same with Winfield Scott, the old hero of Ca

nadian, British, and Mexican campaigns; with McClellan, Hooker, Pope, Burnside, Butler, and Meade, of what there was of war forces, equipment, and organization, and what there was and what there was not, as it should be, in their own and their armies' conduct in the desperate sacrifice. He held the same relations and inquiries in common consent with all these because of his equal capacity, knowledge, and information at their or his own instance or desire, also with the hero leaders, who led their columns always to victory, F. P. Blair, John A. Logan, P. H. Sheridan, W. S. Hancock, and the one and only General U. S. Grant.

In the same persevering way, as his field of labor and duty widened, when Britain in chief and other meddlers of all sorts in unison scented their prey in our distress and hoped for dismemberment, he plodded on, taking up the more comprehensive subject of nation against nation in conflict, what was and what was not war, and how it was waged, in truth, or in dubious evasion and artful definitions, to evade responsibility for unfriendly acts. In the case of Britain it was a critical juncture, with dreadful and momentous consequences in prospect, which might have resulted in another war with Britain, with Russia probably, friendly to us. The burning question was, How far and how long is it prudent, under the strain and provocations of malicious and half-hidden foes, too cowardly to take the responsibility of their concealed alliance, to bear this clandestine help of the chief ally of the insurrection under deceitful pretenses of neutrality? With the prudent determination that "we must have only one war at one time," President Lincoln held back our aggravated people as no other man or leader could have done.

He pushed forward, when he found it necessary, to learn and unravel the intricacies and deceptions of diplomacy and statecraft, as practiced in all the aristocracies of Europe, to understand the duties and privileges of nations in peace or

in war, the same of allies and belligerents of all grades, and of neutrals in their several relations. In short, he took up and learned the systems of international law to as good purpose as he had mastered so many kindred subjects, what there was of protocols, declarations of amity, peace, or war, conferences, alliances, and treaties, until he understood them for use to his needs and liking, and knew of them well enough to administer the Government in the prudence and wisdom that kept us free of a conflict that it would have been folly and madness to provoke at the time.

In all of this he was rising in the progress, success, and management of international polity, dealing as an Executive who, in position, parleying, and conclusion, was never entrapped, deceived, or outwitted by the capable, scheming, and double-faced Administrations of Palmerston, Russell, Gladstone, Northcote, and others of the most successful land-grabbers during four years of British cabinets, nor by the mimic maneuvers of the Pompadour Napoleon. He was an honest American, as clearheaded as he was sincere, fearless, and warm-hearted, a man faithful to freedom, whom the secretly hostile monarchs and Administrations of Europe could neither overthrow nor disconcert. Had he lived, he would have brought Britain to a settlement that is still open for one of his kind in character and strength.

W

CHAPTER LIII.

E have seen how true President Lincoln was to the principles of human freedom on the subject of hu

man slavery. So he remained to its final settlement. When other leaders and eminent men were content to dispute or contend and concede, he struck at the root of the evil, declaring on the basis of God's truth "that slavery must perish." He was no less true and faithful to other reforms that are as necessitous, as we now believe, for the emancipation of men from the greed of their fellows of the same character, differing only in degree and relation from slavery, because it steals men's labor without taking possession of their bodies, and is of the evils that go with slavery and its wickedness.

His life was devoted to the labor of helping his people get homes and hold them. In his public, as in his professional career, he was true to one of his lifetime declarations of principles which he constantly maintained, that "the lands belong to the people." In the best faith in the progress of this fundamental idea, he urged it ahead and zealously supported it in the use of the most effectual and well-chosen means amid all the strife, until Congress passed the act known as the Homestead Law of 1862, by which the public lands were set apart for homes of the people. If this first considerable step in land reform had been carried out in good faith, and had not been thwarted nor infringed and almost set at naught by colossal land-grants of a domain of selected lands more than equal to six States as large as