Lincoln An Account Of His Personal Life Especially Of Its Sprin

But there was another inspiration. His open doors enabled him to study the American people, every phase of it, good and bad. "Men moving only in an official circle," said he, "a...

And then suddenly misfortune overtook him. His great adventure, the first of those spiritual agonies of which he was destined to endure so many, approached. Hitherto, since chil...

So much for the serious side of the swiftly changing political kaleidoscope. There was also a comic side. Only three days sufficed--from Davis's eagerness to proceed on the four...

Lincoln was now entirely himself, astute in action as well as bold in thought. He would not disclose his change of policy while Congress was in session. Should he do so, there w...

Seward approached the problem in the same temper, with the same assumptions, that were his in the previous December. He still believed that his main purpose was to enable a grou...

A third time he made a great literary stroke, gave utterance, in yet another form, to his faith that the national idea was the one constant issue for which he had asked his coun...

On this point Lincoln never wavered. From first to last, he was determined not to admit that Congress had the powers of Parliament. No sooner had the politicians made out this a...

Lincoln was deeply humiliated by his failure to make a serious impression at Washington.(6) His eyes opened in a startled realization that there were worlds he could not conquer...

The new government in Louisiana had been in actual operation for nearly a year. Though Congress had denounced it; though the Manifesto had held it up to scorn as a monarchial ou...

His intimate advisers were not of the same mind. They knew that there was much talk on the theme of a possible dictator-not the constitutional dictator of Lincoln and Stevens, b...

There was another positive element blended into the negative coalition. In 1857, the Republicans overruling the traditions of those members who had once been Democrats, set thei...

Lincoln's situation was a close parallel to the situation of July, 1861, when McDowell failed. Just as in choosing a successor to McDowell, he revealed a political attitude, now...

This first message completes the evolution of Lincoln as a political thinker. It is his third, his last great landmark. The Peoria speech, which drew to a focus all the implicat...

8. Gossip has preserved a melodramatic tale with regard to Lincoln's marriage. It describes the bride to be, waiting, arrayed, in tense expectation deepening into alarm; the gue...

"I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be 'the Union as i...

Properly considered, these famous speeches closed Lincoln's life as an orator. The Cooper Union speech was an isolated aftermath in alien conditions, a set performance not quite...

In the President's councils, General Scott urged delay, and the gathering of the volunteers into camps of instruction, their deliberate transformation into a genuine army. So in...

Sally Lincoln was a kind stepmother to Abraham who became strongly attached to her. In the rough and nondescript community of Pigeon Creek, a world of weedy farms, of miserable...

Meanwhile two other men had conceived an undertaking somewhat analogous but in a temper widely different. These were Colonel Jaquess, a clergyman turned soldier, a man of high s...

It was a terrible decision, carrying within it the possibility of civil war. But Lincoln could not be moved. This was the first acquaintance of the established political leaders...

However, two groups of men in his own party were sullenly opposed to him--the relentless Vindictives and certain irresponsible free lances who named themselves the "Radical Demo...

Lincoln was back in Washington the next day. Another day, and by a sweeping order he created a new army for the protection of Washington, and placed in command of it, a western...

Authority for all important statements of facts in the following pages may be found in the notes; the condensed references are expanded in the bibliography. A few controversial...

Lincoln's managers believed that the great host of free voters who are the balance of power in American politics, were going in a drove toward the camp of the Democrats. It was...

His purpose, he said, was to change the question before the public, from one upon slavery, or about slavery, for a question upon Union or Disunion. Sumter was to be evacuated "a...

Shortly before the end, he had a strange dream. Though he spoke of it almost with levity, it would not leave his thoughts. He dreamed he was wandering through the White House at...

The dramatic contrast of these two began with their physical appearance. Douglas was so small that he had been known to sit on a friend's knee while arguing politics. But his en...

This first official mistake of Lincoln's was in giving way to the fears of his retinue for his safety. The time had become hysterical. The wildest sort of stories filled the air...

It is on this speculation that the unique group of the intimate letters to Speed are developed. They were written after Lincoln's return to Springfield, while Speed was wrestlin...

Nevertheless, from this quandary, in which his reason forced him to do one thing while all his sensibilities protested, he extricated himself in a curious way. Throughout the la...

The fallacy that politics are primarily intellectual decisions upon stated issues, the going forth of the popular mind to decide between programs presented to it by circumstance...

The part of Montgomery in this tangled episode is least understood of the three. With Washington Montgomery had no official communication. Both Lincoln and Seward refused to rec...