platform General McClellan as their candidate. Their convention had
hardly adjourned when the capture of Atlanta gave a new aspect to the
military situation. It was like a sun-ray bursting through a dark cloud.
The rank and file of the Union party rose with rapidly growing
enthusiasm. The song "We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred
thousand strong," resounded all over the land. Long before the decisive
day arrived, the result was beyond doubt, and Lincoln was re-elected
President by overwhelming majorities. The election over even his
severest critics found themselves forced to admit that Lincoln was the
only possible candidate for the Union party in 1864, and that neither
political combinations nor campaign speeches, nor even victories in the
field, were needed to insure his success. The plain people had all the
while been satisfied with Abraham Lincoln: they confided in him; they
loved him; they felt themselves near to him; they saw personified in him
the cause of Union and freedom; and they went to the ballot-box for him
in their strength.

The hour of triumph called out the characteristic impulses of his nature.
The opposition within the Union party had stung him to the quick. Now he
had his opponents before him, baffled and humiliated. Not a moment did
he lose to stretch out the hand of friendship to all. "Now that the
election is over," he said, in response to a serenade, "may not all,
having a common interest, reunite in a common effort to save our common
country? For my own part, I have striven, and will strive, to place no
obstacle in the way. So long as I have been here I have not willingly
planted a thorn in any man's bosom. While I am deeply sensible to the
high compliment of a re-election, it adds nothing to my satisfaction that
any other man may be pained or disappointed by the result. May I ask
those who were with me to join with me in the same spirit toward those
who were against me?" This was Abraham Lincoln's character as tested in