No incident displays more clearly the hold which Lincoln had acquired on the confidence and the affection of his immediate associates.Blair at once tendered his resignation:"I can not take leave of you,"said he,"without renewing the expression of my gratitude for the uniform kindness which has marked your course with regard to myself."[7]That he was not perfunctory,that his great chief had acquired over him an ascendency which was superior to any strain,was demonstrated a few days later in New York.On the twenty-seventh,Cooper Institute was filled with an enthusiastic Lincoln meeting.Blair was a speaker.He was received with loud cheers and took occasion to touch upon his relations with the President."I retired,"said he,"on the recommendation of my own father.My father has passed that period of life when its honors or its rewards,or its glories have any charm for him.He looks backward only,and forward only,to the grandeur of this nation and the happiness of this great people who have grown up under the prosperous condition of the Union;and he would not permit a son of his to stand in the way of the glorious and patriotic President who leads us on to success and to the final triumph that is in store for us."[8]
It was characteristic of this ultimate Lincoln that he offered no explanations,even in terminating the career of a minister;that he gave no confidences.Gently inexorable,he imposed his will in apparent unconsciousness that it might be questioned.
Along with his overmastering kindness,he had something of the objectivity of a natural force.It was the mood attained by a few extraordinary men who have reached a point where,without becoming egoists,they no longer distinguish between themselves and circumstance;the mood of those creative artists who have lost themselves,in the strange way which the dreamers have,who have also found themselves.
Even in the new fascination of the probable turn of the tide,Lincoln did not waver in his fixed purpose to give all his best energies,and the country's best energies,to the war.In October,there was a new panic over the draft.Cameron implored him to suspend it in Pennsylvania until after the presidential election.An Ohio committee went to Washington with the same request.Why should not the arguments that had prevailed with him,or were supposed to have prevailed with him,for the removal of a minister,prevail also in the way of a brief flagging of military preparation?But Lincoln would not look upon the two cases in the same spirit."What is the Presidency worth to me,"he asked the Ohio committee,"if Ihave no country ?"[9]
From the active campaign he held himself aloof.He made no political speeches.He wrote no political letters.The army received his constant detailed attention.In his letters to Grant,he besought him to be unwavering in a relentless persistency.
As Hay records,he was aging rapidly.The immense strain of his labor was beginning to tell both in his features and his expression.He was moving in a shadow.But his old habit of merriment had not left him;though it was now,more often,a surface merriment.On the night of the October elections,Lincoln sat in the telegraph room of the War Office while the reports were coming in."The President in a lull of despatches,took from his pocket the Naseby Papers and read several chapters of the Saint and Martyr,Petroleum V.They were immensely amusing.Stanton and Dana enjoyed them scarcely less than the President,who read on,con amore,until nine o'clock."[10]
The presidential election was held on the eighth of November.
That night,Lincoln with his Secretary was again in the War Office.The early returns showed that the whole North was turning to him in enormous majorities.He showed no exultation.When the Assistant Secretary of the Navy spoke sharply of the complete effacement politically of Henry Winter Davis against whom he had a grudge,Lincoln said,"You have more of that feeling of personal resentment than I.Perhaps Ihave too little of it;but I never thought it paid.A man has no time to spend half his life in quarrels.if any man ceases to attack me I never remember the past against him."[11]
"Towards midnight,"says Hay in his diary,"we had supper.The President went awkwardly and hospitably to work shovelling out the fried oysters.He was most agreeable and genial all the evening....Captain Thomas came up with a band about half-past two and made some music.The President answered from a window with rather unusual dignity and effect,and we came home."[12]
"I am thankful to God,"Lincoln said,in response to the serenade,"for this approval of the people;but while grateful for this mark of their confidence in me,if I know my heart,my gratitude is free from any taint of personal triumph.I do not impugn the motives of any one opposed to me.It is no pleasure to me to triumph over any one,but I give thanks to the Almighty for this evidence of the people's resolution to stand by free government and the rights of humanity."[13]
During the next few days a torrent of congratulations came pouring in.What most impressed the secretaries was his complete freedom from elation."He seemed to deprecate his own triumph and sympathize rather with the beaten than the victorious party."His formal recognition of the event was a prepared reply to a serenade on the night of November tenth.Agreat crowd filled the space in front of the north portico of the White House.Lincoln appeared at a window.A secretary stood at his side holding a lighted candle while he read from a manuscript.The brief address is justly ranked among his ablest occasional utterances.As to the mode of the deliverance,he said to Hay,"Not very graceful,but I am growing old enough not to care much for the manner of doing things."[14]
