must go down, he will stand by the Union; but he evidently accepts the
alternative with reluctance, though with resolution. When it becomes
apparent that this possible alternative is indeed actual, he is true to
his pledge; but it is a new charge in his mind against the
Secessionists, that they have forced him to such election. They will
have it so, he says, and since they will have it so, be it so; the
necessity is not of his making; the retribution is real, but it is
deserved. His final proclamation of freedom in Tennessee, in advance of
executive warrant, was an intrepid and memorable act, worthy of his
resolute spirit,--but was an act rather directed against the Rebels than
prompted by sympathy with the slaves. His career in Tennessee was
already far advanced before he fairly held forth his hand to the negroes
as men, with the rights and interests of human beings; and it needed all
the roused passion of his soul, all the touching trust of this people in
him as their "Moses," all his intensity of recoil from treason, and all
his sense of personal outrage, to nerve him for that triumph over his
traditional prejudices.

The impression of Andrew Johnson which this book gives us is that of a
deep, powerful, impassioned nature, inflexible, but inflexible rather by
definite determination of character and fixity of conviction than by
obstinacy of will. A man of large ability, he is, so to speak, deeply
immersed in his own past,--limited by the bonds of his earnest, but,
until lately, narrow experience. His power to change his point of view
upon theoretical considerations is small, for he does little but expand
his experience into theory. Facts alone can instruct him; and if these
run counter to his intellectual predilection, they must be impressive to
be effectual. He follows the law of his mind in proceeding to make an
"experiment" in dealing with the South, and in making it as nearly as
possible in accordance with the ancient customs of his thought. There is
danger, we think, that he will look at facts too much with a traditional
eye; but there is no danger that he will not act upon them with vigor,
courage, and honest patriotism so far as he shall see them in their true
light.

It should be said, that, to learn the latest modifications of his
opinions, the reader must consult the Introduction.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No.
98, December, 1865, by Various

*** END