s, for the Union press
generally did noble service in the Union cause--of an uncensored
press, and all the complexities of public opinion, Lincoln kept
his head and heart set firmly on the one supreme objective of the
Union. He foresaw from the first that if all the States came through
the war United, then all the reforms for which the war was fought
would follow; but that if any particular reform was itself made
the supreme objective, then it, and with it all the other reforms,
would fail, because only part of the Union strength would be involved,
whereas the whole was needed. Moreover, he clearly foresaw the
absolute nature of a great civil war. Foreign wars may well, and
often do, end in some sort of compromise, especially when the home
life of the opponents can go on as before. But a great civil war
cannot end in compromise because it radically changes the home
life of one side or the other. Davis stood for "Independence or
extermination"; Lincoln simply for the Union, which, in his clear
prevision, meant all that the body politic could need for a new and
better life. He accepted the word "enemy" as descriptive of a passing
phase. He would not accept such phraseology as Meade's, "driving the
invader from our soil." "Will our generals," he complained, "never
get that idea out of their heads? The whole country is our soil."

He was a life-long advocate of Emancipation, first, with compensation,
now as part of the price to be paid for rebellion. Emancipation,
however, depended on the Union, not the Union on it. His Proclamation
was ready in the summer of '62. But to publish it in the midst of
defeat would make it look like an act of despair. In September,
when the Confederates had to recross the Potomac after Antietam, the
Proclamation was given to the world. Its first effect was greater
abroad than at home; for now no foreign government could say, and
rightly say, that the war, not being fought on account of slavery,
might leave that issue still unsettled. This was a most important
point in Lincoln's foreign policy, a policy which had been haunted
by the fear of recognition for the South or the possibility of
war with either the French or British, or even both together.

Lincoln's Cabinet was composed of two factions, one headed by Seward,
the Secretary of State, the other by Chase, the Secretary of the
Treasury. Both the fighting services were under War Democrats:
the Army under Stanton, the Navy under Welles. All