s. The ardent spirits among the Union men thought that
the whole North should at once be called to arms, to crush the rebellion
by one powerful blow. The ardent spirits among the antislavery men
insisted that, slavery having brought forth the rebellion, this powerful
blow should at once be aimed at slavery. Both complained that the
administration was spiritless, undecided, and lamentably slow in its
proceedings. Lincoln reasoned otherwise. The ways of thinking and
feeling of the masses, of the plain people, were constantly present to
his mind. The masses, the plain people, had to furnish the men for the
fighting, if fighting was to be done. He believed that the plain people
would be ready to fight when it clearly appeared necessary, and that
they would feel that necessity when they felt themselves attacked. He
therefore waited until the enemies of the Union struck the first blow.
As soon as, on the 12th of April, 1861, the first gun was fired in
Charleston harbor on the Union flag upon Fort Sumter, the call was
sounded, and the Northern people rushed to arms.

Lincoln knew that the plain people were now indeed ready to fight in
defence of the Union, but not yet ready to fight for the destruction of
slavery. He declared openly that he had a right to summon the people to
fight for the Union, but not to summon them to fight for the abolition
of slavery as a primary object; and this declaration gave him numberless
soldiers for the Union who at that period would have hesitated to do
battle against the institution of slavery. For a time he succeeded
in rendering harmless the cry of the partisan opposition that the
Republican administration were perverting the war for the Union into an
"abolition war." But when he went so far as to countermand the acts of
some generals in the field, looking to the emancipation of the slaves
in the districts covered by their commands, loud complaints arose from
earnest antislavery men, who accused the President of turning his back
upon the antislavery cause. Many of these antislavery men will now,
after a calm retrospect, be willing to admit that it would have been
a hazardous policy to endanger, by precipitating a demonstrative fight
against slavery, the success of the struggle for the Union.

Lincoln's views and feelings concerning slavery had not changed. Those
who conversed with him intimately upon the subject at that period know
that he did not expect slavery long to survive the triumph of