In a matter which must be finally settled by public opinion, and in
regard to which the ferment of prejudice and passion on both sides
has not yet subsided to that equilibrium of compromise from which
alone a sound public opinion can result, it is proper enough for the
private citizen to press his own convictions with all possible force
of argument and persuasion; but the popular magistrate, whose
judgment must become action, and whose action involves the whole
country, is bound to wait till the sentiment of the people is so far
advanced toward his own point of view, that what he does shall find
support in it, instead of merely confusing it with new elements of
division. It was not unnatural that men earnestly devoted to the
saving of their country, and profoundly convinced that slavery was
its only real enemy, should demand a decided policy round which all
patriots might rally,--and this might have been the wisest course for
an absolute ruler. But in the then unsettled state of the public mind,
with a large party decrying even resistance to the slaveholders'
rebellion as not only unwise, but even unlawful; with a majority,
perhaps, even of the would-be loyal so long accustomed to regard
the Constitution as a deed of gift conveying to the South their own
judgment as to policy and instinct as to right, that they were in
doubt at first whether their loyalty were due to the country or to
slavery; and with a respectable body of honest and influential men
who still believed in the possibility of conciliation,--Mr. Lincoln
judged wisely, that, in laying down a policy in deference to one
party, he should be giving to the other the very fulcrum for which
their disloyalty had been waiting.

(1) One of the three Fates.
(2) Odysseus, or Ulysses, the hero of Homer's Odyssey.