ile combinations to go so far as by
the inevitable reaction to become elements of his own power, that a
politician proves his genius for state-craft; and especially it is by
so gently guiding public sentiment that he seems to follow it, by so
yielding doubtful points that he can be firm without seeming obstinate
in essential ones, and thus gain the advantages of compromise without
the weakness of concession; by so instinctively comprehending the
temper and prejudices of a people as to make them gradually conscious
of the superior wisdom of his freedom from temper and prejudice,--it is
by qualities such as these that a magistrate shows himself worthy to be
chief in a commonwealth of freemen. And it is for qualities such as
these that we firmly believe History will rank Mr. Lincoln among the
most prudent of statesmen and the most successful of rulers. If we wish
to appreciate him, we have only to conceive the inevitable chaos in
which we should now be weltering, had a weak man or an unwise one been
chosen in his stead.

"Bare is back," says the Norse proverb, "without brother behind it";
and this is, by analogy, true of an elective magistracy. The hereditary
ruler in any critical emergency may reckon on the inexhaustible
resources of _prestige_, of sentiment, of superstition, of dependent
interest, while the new man must slowly and painfully create all these
out of the unwilling material around him, by superiority of character,
by patient singleness of purpose, by sagacious presentiment of popular
tendencies and instinctive sympathy with the national character. Mr.
Lincoln's task was one of peculiar and exceptional difficulty. Long
habit had accustomed the American people to the notion of a party in
power, and of a President as its creature and organ, while the more
vital fact, that the executive for the time being represents the
abstract idea of government as a permanent principle superior to all
party and all private interest, had gradually become unfamiliar. They
had so long seen the public policy more or less directed by views of
party, and often even of personal advantage, as to be ready to suspect
the motives of a chief magistrate compelled, for the first time in our
history, to feel himself the head and hand of a great nation, and to
act upon the fundamental maxim, laid down by all publicists, that the
first duty of a government is to defend and maintain its own existence.
Accordingly, a powerful weapon seemed to b