1864.
Zr. 80.

913

LIFE OF OOBDEN.

[omar.

Character of President Lincoln.
“Jan. 7. (To Mr. Summer.)—You will soon begin to busy
yourselves with the task of President-making. I hope you will
re-elect Mr. Lincoln. He is rising in reputation in Europe
apart from the success of the North. He possesses great
moral qualities, which in the long-run tell more on the
fortunes of the world in these days than mere intellect. I
always thought his want of enlarged experience was &
disadvantage to him. But he knows his own countrymen
evidently, and that is the main point. And being a stranger
bo the rest of the world, he has the less temptation t0
embark in foreign controversies or quarrels, Nothing
shows his solid sense more thanthe pertinacity with which
he avoids all outside complications. His truthful elevation
of character, and his somewhat stolid placidity of nature,
put it quite beyond the power of other governments to
fasten a quarrel on him, and inspire the fullest confidence
in those who are committing themselves to the side of the
North, I say all this on the assumption that he has
irrevocably committed himself to ¢ abolition ’ as the result of
the war. Any compromise on that question would cover
your cause with external infamy, and render the sanguinary
civil war with which you have desolated the North snd
South, a useless butchery.”

The American War.
“ Midhurst, Aug. 18,1864. ( ,, }—1 still look forward
with unabated confidence to the trinmph of the North, But I
begin to speculate on the effect which the failure of Grant's
campaign may have on your politics, Sometimes I speculate
on the possibility of your imitating the course which political
parties often follow here, and that your Democrats, who
appear to be for peace, may come into power, and carry out
sven more successfully than Your party could do the policy