leave the people of the South for many generations cherishing deadly
hostility against the government and the North, and plotting always to
recover their independence.

When Lincoln issued his proclamation he knew that all these ideas were
founded in error; that the national resources were inexhaustible; that
the government could and would win, and that if slavery were once finally
disposed of, the only cause of difference being out of the way, the North
and South would come together again, and by and by be as good friends as
ever. In many quarters abroad the proclamation was welcomed with
enthusiasm by the friends of America; but I think the demonstrations in
its favor that brought more gladness to Lincoln's heart than any other
were the meetings held in the manufacturing centres, by the very
operatives upon whom the war bore the hardest, expressing the most
enthusiastic sympathy with the proclamation, while they bore with heroic
fortitude the grievous privations which the war entailed upon them. Mr.
Lincoln's expectation when he announced to the world that all slaves in
all States then in rebellion were set free must have been that the avowed
position of his government, that the continuance of the war now meant the
annihilation of slavery, would make intervention impossible for any
foreign nation whose people were lovers of liberty--and so the result
proved.

The growth and development of Lincoln's mental power and moral force, of
his intense and magnetic personality, after the vast responsibilities of
government were thrown upon him at the age of fifty-two, furnish a rare
and striking illustration of the marvellous capacity and adaptability of
the human intellect--of the sound mind in the sound body. He came to the
discharge of the great duties of the Presidency with absolutely no
experience in the administration of government, or of the vastly varied