een and prepared for by anticipatory legislation,
may be solved in but one way, by the temporary creation of the dictator;
this is as true of modern America as of ancient Rome; so far, most
people are agreed; but this extraordinary function must not be vested
in the Executive; on the contrary, it must be, it is, vested in the
Legislature. Stevens did not hesitate to push his theory to its
limit. He was not afraid of making the Legislature in time of war the
irresponsible judge of its own acts. Congress, said he, has all possible
powers of government, even the dictator's power; it could declare itself
a dictator; under certain circumstances he was willing that it should do
so.(7)

The intellectual boldness of Lincoln was matched by an equal boldness.
Between them, he and Stevens had perfectly defined their issue. Granted
that a dictator was needed, which should it be--the President or
Congress?

In the hesitancy at the White House during the last eclipse, in the
public distress and the personal grief, Lincoln withheld himself
from this debate. No great utterances break the gloom of this period.
Nevertheless, what may be considered his reply to Stevens is to be
found. Buried in the forgotten portions of the Congressional Globe is a
speech that surely was inspired-or, if not directly inspired, so close
a reflection of the President's thinking that it comes to the same thing
at the end.

Its author, or apparent author, was one of the few serene figures in
that Thirty-Seventh Congress which was swept so pitilessly by epidemics
of passion. When Douglas, after coming out valiantly for the Union and
holding up Lincoln's hands at the hour of crisis, suddenly died, the
Illinois Legislature named as his successor in the Senate, Orville Henry
Browning. The new Senator was Lincoln's intimate friend. Their points
of view, their temperaments were similar. Browning shared Lincoln's
magnanimity, his hatred of extremes, his eagerness not to allow the
war to degenerate into revolution. In the early part of 1862 he was
Lincoln's spokesman in the Senate. Now that the temper of Wade and
Chandler, the ruthlessness that dominated the Committee, had drawn unto
itself such a cohort of allies; now that all their thinking had been
organized by a fearless mind; there was urgent need for a masterly
reply. Did Lincoln feel unequal, at the moment, to this great task? Very
probably he did. Anyhow, it was Browning who made the reply,(8) a reply
so e