that the national government was a thing of extremely limited powers,
the "glorified policeman" of a certain school of publicists reduced
almost to a minus quantity. The Whigs, though amiably vague on most
things except money-making by state aid, were supposed to stand for a
"strong central government". Abolitionism had forced on both parties a
troublesome question, "What about slavery in the District of Columbia,
where the national government was supreme?" The Democrats were prompt
in their reply: Let the glorified policeman keep the peace and leave
private interests, such as slave-holding, alone. The Whigs evaded, tried
not to apply their theory of "strong" government; they were fearful
lest they offend one part of their membership if they asserted that
the nation had no right to abolish slavery in the District, fearful of
offending others if they did not. Lincoln's protest asserted that "the
Congress of the United States has the power, under the Constitution, to
abolish slavery in the District of Columbia but the power ought not to
be exercised, unless at the request of the District." In other words,
Lincoln, when suddenly out of the storm and stress that followed Ann's
death his mentality flashes forth, has an attitude toward political
power that was not a consequence of his environment, that sets him
apart as a type of man rare in the history of statesmanship. What other
American politician of his day--indeed, very few politicians of any
day--would have dared to assert at once the existence of a power and
the moral obligation not to use it? The instinctive American mode of
limiting power is to deny its existence. Our politicians so deeply
distrust our temperament that whatever they may say for rhetorical
effect, they will not, whenever there is any danger of their being taken
at their word, trust anything to moral law. Their minds are normally
mechanical. The specific, statutory limitation is the only one that for
them has reality. The truth that temper in politics is as great a factor
as law was no more comprehensible to the politicians of 1837 than,