d
distracting as were their habits of political thought, the people of the
North finally disentangled the essential question, and then supported
loyally the man who, more than any other single political leader, had
properly defined the issue.

That man was Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln's peculiar service to his
countrymen before the war was that of seeing straighter and thinking
harder than did his contemporaries. No doubt he must needs have courage,
also, for in the beginning he acted against the advice of his Republican
associates. But in 1858 there were plenty of men who had the courage,
whereas there were very few who had Lincoln's disciplined intelligence
and his just and penetrating insight. Lincoln's vision placed every
aspect of the situation in its proper relations; and he was as fully
competent to detect the logical weakness of his opponent's position as
he was to explain his own lucidly, candidly, and persuasively. It so
happened that the body of public opinion which he particularly addressed
was that very part of the American democracy most likely to be deluded
into allowing the Southern leaders to have their will, yet whose
adhesion to the national cause was necessary to the preservation of the
Union. It was into this mass of public opinion, after the announcement
of his senatorial candidacy, that he hammered a new and a hard truth. He
was the first responsible politician to draw the logical inference from
the policy of the Republican party. The Constitution was inadequate to
cure the ills it generated. By its authorization of slavery it
established an institution whose legality did not prevent it from being
anti-national. That institution must either be gradually reduced to
insignificance, or else it must transform and take possession of the
American national idea. The Union had become a house divided against
itself; and this deep-lying division could not be bridged merely by
loyal Constitutionalism or by an anti-national interpretation of
democracy. The legal Union was being threatened precisely because
American national integrity was being gutted by an undemocratic
institution. The house must either fall or else cease to be divided.
Thus for the first time it was clearly proclaimed by a responsible
politician that American nationality was a living principle rather than
a legal bond; and Lincoln's service to his country in making the Western
Democracy understand that living Americans were responsible for their