speech, was "more
difficult than that of Washington himself had been."

But Lincoln brought to that task, aside from other uncommon qualities,
the first requisite,--an intuitive comprehension of its nature. While
he did not indulge in the delusion that the Union could be maintained or
restored without a conflict of arms, he could indeed not foresee all the
problems he would have to solve. He instinctively understood, however,
by what means that conflict would have to be conducted by the government
of a democracy. He knew that the impending war, whether great or small,
would not be like a foreign war, exciting a united national enthusiasm,
but a civil war, likely to fan to uncommon heat the animosities of party
even in the localities controlled by the government; that this war would
have to be carried on not by means of a ready-made machinery, ruled
by an undisputed, absolute will, but by means to be furnished by the
voluntary action of the people:--armies to be formed by voluntary
enlistments; large sums of money to be raised by the people, through
representatives, voluntarily taxing themselves; trust of extraordinary
power to be voluntarily granted; and war measures, not seldom
restricting the rights and liberties to which the citizen was
accustomed, to be voluntarily accepted and submitted to by the people,
or at least a large majority of them; and that this would have to be
kept up not merely during a short period of enthusiastic excitement; but
possibly through weary years of alternating success and disaster, hope
and despondency. He knew that in order to steer this government by
public opinion successfully through all the confusion created by the
prejudices and doubts and differences of sentiment distracting the
popular mind, and so to propitiate, inspire, mould, organize, unite, and
guide the popular will that it might give forth all the means required
for the performance of his great task, he would have to take into
account all the influences strongly affecting the current of popular
thought and feeling, and to direct while appearing to obey.

This was the kind of leadership he intuitively conceived to be needed
when a free people were to be led forward en masse to overcome a
great common danger under circumstances of appalling difficulty, the
leadership which does not dash ahead with brilliant daring, no matter
who follows, but which is intent upon rallying all the available forces,
gathering in the stragglers,