justifiable only by the imperative necessities of the civil war, so that
they might not pass into history as precedents for similar acts in time
of peace. It is an unquestionable fact that during the reconstruction
period which followed the war, more things were done capable of serving
as dangerous precedents than during the war itself. Thus it may truly be
said of him not only that under his guidance the republic was saved from
disruption and the country was purified of the blot of slavery, but that,
during the stormiest and most perilous crisis in our history, he so
conducted the government and so wielded his almost dictatorial power as
to leave essentially intact our free institutions in all things that
concern the rights and liberties of the citizens. He understood well the
nature of the problem. In his first message to Congress he defined it in
admirably pointed language: "Must a government be of necessity too strong
for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own
existence? Is there in all republics this inherent weakness?" This
question he answered in the name of the great American republic, as no
man could have answered it better, with a triumphant "No...."

It has been said that Abraham Lincoln died at the right moment for his
fame. However that may be, he had, at the time of his death, certainly
not exhausted his usefulness to his country. He was probably the only
man who could have guided the nation through the perplexities of the
reconstruction period in such a manner as to prevent in the work of peace
the revival of the passions of the war. He would indeed not have escaped
serious controversy as to details of policy; but he could have weathered
it far better than any other statesman of his time, for his prestige with
the active politicians had been immensely strengthened by his triumphant
re-election; and, what is more important, he would have been supported by
the confidence of the victorious Northern people that he would do all to
secure the safety of the Union and the rights of the emancipated negro,