periment had already been settled; the government had been established, and it had been administered. One point remained to be established: its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it. It remained to be demonstrated to the world that those who could fairly carry an election could also suppress a rebellion-"that ballots are the, rightful and peaceful successors to bullets, and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets-that there can be no successful appeal, except to ballots themselves, at succeeding elections." Another justification of the war in which he was engaged he found in that article of the Constitution which provides that "the United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form of government." If a state might lawfully go out of the Union, it might also, having gone out, discard the republican form of government, "so that to prevent its going out is an indispensable means to the end of maintaining the guarantee mentioned; and when an end is lawful and obligatory, the indispensable means to it are also lawful and obligatory."

Congress was ready to do all that the President desired, and even more. Instead of four hundred million dollars, they placed at his disposal five hundred millions, and instead of confining his levy of troops to four hundred thousand, they gave him liberty to call out half a million. They also legalized all the steps he had thus far taken for the suppression of the rebellion, and labored in all ways to strengthen his hands and encourage his heart. These measures were passed in the presence, and against the protest, of secessionists, who still held their places in both houses of Congress. Burnett of Kentucky and Reid and Norton of Missouri, in the House, afterwards proved their treason by engaging directly in the rebellion. Breckinridge and Powell of Kentucky and Polk and Johnson of Missouri, in the Senate, were known at the time to be anything but loyal. And they had sympathizers who, under any other government, would have been arrested and held, if not treated with still greater severity. Vallan

digham of Ohio was afterwards sent into the rebel lines for treason, and it is undoubtedly true that Kennedy of Maryland, Bayard of Delaware, Bright of Indiana, and Ben Wood of New York had personal reason for feeling that he had been very harshly used. Yet it was best that these men should be where they were, to bicker and bite, and illustrate the spirit of that incorporate infamy-a slaveholders' rebellion. Such toleration illustrated alike the strength and moderation of the government. Some of these men were permitted to rise in the places they had justly forfeited, and, with perjured lips, to talk treason to complain of arbitrary arrests when they were suffered to go and come, and scheme and brawl with perfect liberty, in the streets of the national capital.

There was plenty of treasonable talk in Congress, but no treasonable action. The party friends of the government were in a majority, and they were aided by numbers of loyal democrats. The schemes of finance recommended by Mr. Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury, were adopted essentially as recommended, a moderate confiscation act was passed, and a resolution adopted by the House-introduced by Mr. Crittenden of Kentucky-that the war had been forced upon the country by the disunionists of the southern states, then in revolt against the constitutional government and in arms around the capital: that Congress, banishing all feeling of passion or resentment, would recollect only its duty to the whole country: that the war was not waged on the part of the government in the spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of the states; but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union, with all the dignities, equality and rights of the several states unimpaired: and that as soon as those objects were accomplished, the war ought to cease. During the session, Mr. Trumbull of Illinois introduced a bill in the Senate to emancipate all the slaves in the rebel states. This was a prophecy and a threat of what would come as the reward of rebel contumacy.

The session closed on the sixth day of August, having lasted but little more than a month. The President found himself abundantly supported, and the means in his hands for carrying on the great contest.

The message of Mr. Lincoln to this extra session of Congress, taken with his inaugural, did much to overcome the unpleasant impressions produced by the speeches he made on his way to Washington. There is no question that those speeches seriously damaged him, and shook the confidence of the country in his ability. The inaugural and the message had the old ring in them, and betrayed something of those qualities which had originally attracted the country to him.

It is true, however, that he did not spend much time in writing his messages. His later efforts in this line did not bear always so many marks of painstaking as the first. He had a great aversion to what he called "machine writing," and always used the fewest words possible to express his meaning. Mr. Defrees, the public printer, an intimate personal friend of Mr. Lincoln, testifies that he made the fewest corrections in his proof of any man he ever knew. He knew nothing of the rules of punctuation, yet the manuscripts of very few of our public men are as well punctuated as his uniformly were, though his use of commas was excessive.

Mr. Defrees, being on easy terms with Mr. Lincoln, took it upon him to suggest with relation to his first message that he was not preparing a campaign document, or delivering a stump speech in Illinois, but constructing an important state

paper, that would go down historically to all coming time; and that, therefore, he did not consider the phrase, "sugarcoated," which he had introduced, as entirely a becoming and dignified one. "Well, Defrees," said Mr. Lincoln, good naturedly, "if you think the time will ever come when the people will not understand what "sugar-coated" means, I'll alter it; otherwise, I think I'll let it go." To make people understand exactly what he meant, was his grand aim. Beyond that, he had not the slightest ambition to go.

To close this chapter, it only remains to record the relief

of Major General McDowell, a worthy but unfortunate officer, and the appointment of General McClellan to the command of the army of the Potomac. The country had been attracted to McClellan by his dispatches from Western Virginia. General Scott favored him, and to him was accordingly assigned the work of re-organizing the shattered army. The public hope was ready to cling somewhere, and the public heart gave itself to McClellan with an enthusiastic devotion rarely accorded to any man. His pictures were in all the windows of the shops, and on all the center tables of all the drawing-rooms in the land. If he had done but little before to merit this confidence-if he did but little afterwards to justify it-he, at least, served at that time to give faith to the people, and furnish a rallying point for their patriotic service. For three months, under his faithful and assiduous supervision, the organization of troops went on, until he had at his command a magnificent army which needed only to be properly led to be victorious.

CHAPT
CHAPTER XX.

THE victory of the rebels at Bull Run was singularly barren of material results to them. It did not encourage the disloyal masses of the country more than it filled with new determination the loyal people who opposed them. They were as badly punished as the troops they had defeated, and could take no advantage of their victory; and they failed to bring nearer the day of foreign recognition for which they were laboring and longing.

This matter of foreign recognition was a very important one to Mr. Davis and his confederates. That he expected it, and had reason to expect it, there is no question. Hostilities had hardly opened when the British and French governments, acting in concert, recognized the government established at Montgomery as a belligerent power. If this was not a pledge of friendliness, and a promise of recognition, nothing could have been, for the proceeding was unprecedented. The United States was a power in friendly intercourse with these two great powers of Europe, through complete diplomatic relations. Without a word of warning, without a victory on the part of the insurgents, without a confederate fleet afloat, with only a half of the slave states in insurrection, these two governments, with the most indecent haste, gave their moral support to the enemies of the United States by recognizing a portion of its people engaged in an insurrection which the government had not yet undertaken to suppress-as a belligerent power, with just the same rights on land and sea as if they were an established government.