ve no experience in Government, and that's about true.
Up in New England the papers are asking who is this political huckster,
this county court advocate? Mr. Stanton says I'm an imbecile, and when
he's cross calls me the original gorilla, and wonders why fools wander
about in Africa when they could find the beast they are looking for in
Washington. The pious everywhere don't like me, because I don't hold
that national policy can be run on the lines of a church meeting. And
the Radicals are looking for me with a gun, because I'm not prepared
right here and now to abolish slavery. One of them calls me 'the slave
hound of Illinois.' I'd like to meet that man, for I guess he must be a
humorist."

Mr. Seward leaned forward and spoke earnestly. "Mr. President, no man
values your great qualities more than I do or reprobates more heartily
such vulgar libels. But it is true that you lack executive experience.
I have been the Governor of the biggest State in the Union, and possess
some knowledge of the task. It is all at your service. Will you not
allow me to ease your burden?"

Lincoln smiled down kindly upon the other. "I thank you with all my
heart. You have touched on that matter in your letter.... But, Mr.
Secretary, in the inscrutable providence of God it is I who have been
made President. I cannot shirk the duty. I look to my Cabinet, and
notably to you for advice and loyal assistance, and I am confident that
I shall get it. But in the end I and I only must decide."

Seward looked up at the grave face and said nothing. Lincoln went on:

"I have to make a decision which may bring war--civil war. I don't know
anything about war, though I served a month or two in the Black Hawk
campaign and yet, if war comes, I am the Commander-in-Chief of the
Union. Who among us knows anything of the business. General Scott is
an old man, and he doesn't just see eye to eye with me; for I'm told
he talks about 'letting the wayward sisters go in peace.' Our army and
navy's nothing much to boast of, and the South is far better prepared.
You can't tell how our people will take war, for they're all pulling
different ways just now. Blair says the whole North will spring to arms,
but I guess they've first got to find the arms to spring to.... I was
reviewing some militia the other day, and they looked a deal more like a
Fourth of July procession than a battlefield. Yes, Mr. Secretary, if we
have to fight, we've first got to make an army. Rememb