s will constantly require precisely that
judgment on the nail, and not to be drawn for at three days' sight, of
which General McClellan has shown least.

Is our path to be so smooth for the next four years that a man whose
leading characteristic is an exaggeration of difficulties is likely to
be our surest guide? If the war is still to be carried on,--and surely
the nation has shown no symptoms of slackening in its purpose,--what
modifications of it would General McClellan introduce? The only
information that is vouchsafed us is, that he is to be the
"conservative" candidate, a phrase that may mean too little or too
much. As well as we can understand it, it is the convenient formula by
which to express the average want of opinions of all who are out of
place, out of humor, or dislike the dust which blinds and chokes
whoever is behind the times. Sometimes it is used as the rallying-cry
of an amiable class of men, who still believe, in a vague sort of way,
that the rebels can be conciliated by offering them a ruler more
_comme il faut_ than Mr. Lincoln, a country where a flatboat-man
may rise to the top, by virtue of mere manhood, being hardly the place
for people of truly refined sensibilities. Or does it really mean
nothing more nor less than that we are to try to put slavery back again
where it was before (only that it is not quite convenient just now to
say so), on the theory that teleologically the pot of ointment was made
to conserve the dead fly?

In the providence of God the first thoughtless enthusiasm of the nation
has settled to deep purpose, their anger has been purified by trial
into a conviction of duty, and they are face to face with one of those
rare occasions where duty and advantage are identical. The man who is
fit for the office of President in these times should be one who knows
how to advance, an art which General McClellan has never learned. He
must be one who comprehends that three years of war have made vast
changes in the relative values of things. He must be one who feels to
the very marrow of his bones that this is a war, not to conserve the
forms, but the essence, of free institutions. He must be willing to
sacrifice everything to the single consideration of success, because
success means truth and honor; to use every means, though they may
alarm the fears of men who are loyal with a reservation, or shock the
prejudices of would-be traitors. No middle course is safe in troubled
times, and th