ibed. None knew better than he,
the fell purpose and spirit of the Conspirators. Yet still, his kindly
heart refused to believe that the madness of the Southern leaders was so
frenzied, and their hatred of Free men, Free labor, and Free
institutions, so implacable, that they would wilfully refuse to listen
to reason and ever insist on absolutely inadmissible terms of
reconciliation.

From the very beginning of his Administration, he did all that was
possible to mollify their resentment and calm their real or pretended
fears. Nor was this from any dread or doubt as to what the outcome of
an armed Conflict would be; for, in his speech at Cincinnati, in the
Autumn of 1859, he had said, while addressing himself to Kentuckians and
other Southern men: "Why, gentlemen, I think you are as gallant and as
brave men as live; that you can fight as bravely in a good cause, man
for man, as any other people living; that you have shown yourselves
capable of this upon various occasions; but man for man, you are not
better than we are, and there are not so many of you as there are of us.
You will never make much of a hand at whipping us. If we were fewer in
numbers than you, I think that you could whip us; if we were equal it
would likely be a drawn battle; but being inferior in numbers, you will
make nothing by attempting to master us."

And early in 1860, in his famous New York Cooper Institute speech he had
said "Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let
us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it." He plainly
believed to the end, that "right makes might;" and he believed in the
power of numbers--as also did Napoleon, if we may judge from his famous
declaration that "The God of battles is always on the side of the
heaviest battalions." Yet, so believing, President Lincoln exerted
himself in all possible ways to mollify the South. His assurances,
however, were far from satisfying the Conspirators. They never had been
satisfied with anything in the shape of concession. They never would
be. They had been dissatisfied with and had broken all the compacts and
compromises, and had spit upon all the concessions, of the past; and
nothing would now satisfy them, short of the impossible.

They were not satisfied now with Lincoln's promise that the Government
would not assail them--organized as, by this time, they were into a
so-called Southern "Confederacy" of States--and they proceeded accordingly