ingenious excuses were devised by extremists for condemning the man who
had done the act, the Republican party faithfully supported the act
itself. In the middle of December the House passed a resolution
ratifying the President's policy as "well adapted to hasten the
restoration of peace," and "well chosen as a war measure."

The President himself afterward declared his "conviction" that, had the
proclamation been issued six months earlier, it would not have been
sustained by public opinion; and certainly it is true that
contemporaneous political occurrences now failed to corroborate the
soundness of those assertions by which the irreconcilable
emancipationist critics of Mr. Lincoln had been endeavoring to induce
him to adopt their policy earlier. They themselves, as Mr. Wilson
admits, "had never constituted more than an inconsiderable fraction" of
the whole people at the North. He further says: "At the other extreme,
larger numbers received it [the proclamation] with deadly and outspoken
opposition; while between these extremes the great body even of Union
men doubted, hesitated.... Its immediate practical effect did perhaps
more nearly answer the apprehensions of the President than the
expectations of those most clamorous for it. It did, as charged, very
much 'unite the South and divide the North.'"

In the autumn of 1862 there took place the elections for Representatives
to the Thirty-eighth Congress. The most ingenious sophist could hardly
maintain that strenuous anti-slavery voters, who had been angry with the
government for backwardness in the emancipation policy, ought now to
manifest their discontent by voting the Democratic ticket. If there
should be a Democratic reaction at the polls it could not possibly be
construed otherwise than as a reaction against anti-slavery; it would
undeniably indicate that Congress and the administration had been too
hostile rather than too friendly towards that cause of the strife, that
they had outstripped rather than fallen behind popular sympathy. It soon
became evident that a formidable reaction of this kind had taken place,
that dissatisfaction with the anti-slavery measures and discouragement
at the military failures, together, were even imperiling Republican
ascendency. Now all knew, though some might not be willing to say, that
the loss of Republican ascendency meant, in fact, the speedy settlement
of the war by compromise; and the South was undoubtedly in earnest in
decl