368 A Short History of The World was no doubt. He was a clear-minded man in the midst of much confusion. He stood for union ; he stood for the wide peace of America. He was opposed to slavery, but slavery he held to be a secondary issue ; his primary purpose was that the United States should not be torn into two contrasted and jarring fragments. When in the opening stages of the war Congress and the Federal generals embarked upon a precipitate emancipation, Lincoln opposed and mitigated their enthusiasm. He was for emancipation by stages and with compensation. It was only in January, 1865, that the situation had ripened to a point when Congress could propose to abolish slavery for ever by a constitutional amendment, and the war was already over before this amendment was ratified by the states. As the war dragged on through 1862 and 1863, the first passions and enthusiasms waned, and America learnt all the phases of war weariness and war disgust. The president found himself with de- featists, traitors, dismissed generals, tortuous party politicians, and a doubting and fatigued people behind him and uninspired generals and depressed troops before him ; his chief consolation must have been that Jefferson Davis at Richmond could be in little better case. The English government misbehaved, and permitted the Con- federate agents in England to launch and man three swift privateer ships — the Alabama is the best remembered of them — ^which chased United States shipping from the seas. The French army in Mexico was trampling the Monroe doctrine in the dirt. Came subtle pro- posals from Richmond to drop the war, leave the issues of the war for subsequent discussion, and turn, Federal and Confederate in alliance, upon the French in Mexico. But Lincoln would not listen to such proposals unless the supremacy of the Union was maintained. The Americans might do such things as one people but not as two. He held the United States together through long weary months of reverses and ineffective effort, through black phases of division and failing courage ; and there is no record that he ever faltered from his purpose. There were times when there was nothing to be done, when he sat in the White House silent and motionless, a grim monu- ment of resolve ; times when he relaxed his mind by jesting and broad anecdotes. He saw the Union triumphant. He entered Richmond the day after its surrender, and heard of Lee's capitulation. He returned to Washington, and on April 11th made his last public address. His theme was reconciliation and the reconstruction of loyal government
