The daily Evansville journal. (Evansville, Ind.) 1862-1863, 1863-09-14
THE PRESInEYT.


dent is daily justified His impulses ar,
wiser than the wary plans of more cum
ming men. 1t is true that, in writing
the letter to the Albany Committee, ht
] was family accused in some quarters O
want of dignity. But both the resolu
ton to write and the time of WRITING
were most happy illustrations of his
| shrewdness, while the letter itself is nm.
answerable, and will henceforth be a
constituent part of the body of Consti-
tutional Interpretation. His replies to
Governor Seymour are not less excellent
In their way.
In fact, from the moment of his inau-
guration, it will appear that he has full
filled every duty of his great office with
an ability not less remarkable than his
honesty. The desperate effort to make
him seem to be partizan has utterly
failed. He has aimed only at the main
tenance of the Governments; and to Sc
cure that end he has no more hesitated
TO adopt policy which his own party
approved than he has to take measures
which the party opposed to him applaud
ed. He has filed the chief posts of
command with men of all political views
Yet he has been most sbarplp denounced
from the beginning of the war no less
by his old party friends than enemies.
The consequence is, that, tthis moment
he stands little outside of all parties
even among loyal men. The rebels, and
their tools the Copperheads, of course.
hate him. The War Conservative Re-
pubiicans think him too much in the
hands of the radicals; while the radical
Republicans think him too slow, Welding.
and half-hearted. And yet, without
doubt, the more thoughtful and
patriotic men of all parties can not but
see how time confirms his wisdom, and
were President to be named to-mor-
row they would declare for Mr. Lincoln.
80 calm is his temperament, and so
patriotic his policy, that the emancipa-
ton act from his hands could not seem.
and never has seemed, to be a partizan
movement. From the beginning he did
not doubt the right of emancipation as
deoTurru eue- -o9Ject On tne wall 70 be tie
maintenance of the Government When
Fremont and Hunter issued their orders |
he quietly revoked them not, as he said, |
because such measures were wrong, but
because in his view the time for them |
had not yet come, and when it came, he |
must exercise the power. When it did
come, he warned the rebels last Septem- |
Der that he had never doubted the pos
sible military necessity might arise; that |
q =pailitensuoNenrnUJ DC summary adop- |
ted; that he admonished them, if they |
feared the consequences of such meas
ure, to escape them by submission to the |
laws; and that if they did not submit |
within three months the measure would |
become part of the policy of the Gov
ernment.
The rebels sneered, and their allies,
the Copperheads, organized. The disas- |
trous failure of McClellan's and Popes |
campaigns, with the retirement OF Lee
in good order after Antietam, the long
inaction of the Autumn, and the removal
of Mcclellan, dispirited many and disat-
fected some to the war. The conse-
quences were seen in the elections. Mr..
Eoratio Seymour is a specimen of the
esult. But the President did not waver.
The country was to be saved, IT at all,
by policy which was not approved by
the virtual friends of the rebellion. The
opposition of such gentlemen as Mr..
Seymour and his manag ers was the con-
elusive argument for that policy. There
fore, on the lst Of January, the order of
emancipation was issued, and all per-
sons held on that day as slaves within
specified limits were freed.
To that order, and the policy which
dictated it, every sincerely loyal man ac-
cedes. For it was clearly not an act of
the President, as Partisan Republican,
but as Commanderin- Chief, sworn to de-
fend the Government by every military
resource. The loyal men who sustain 1t
to-day are of all the late political par
ties and of all shades of opinion in regard
to Slavery. The order was not issued
by the Commander-in-Chief, nor is it
supported by the loyal country, because
slavery is wrong, but because it helps
the enemy Doubtless the conviction
that it is the root of the war has made
many assent with more alacrity to the
act of emancipation; but the President
adopted it as military and not as a
moral measure. The way in which it
was done, and the time, are both indica-
tons of the practical wisdom of the Chief
Magistrate.
History will vindicate the President,
even if our impatience should be unjust
to him. 1t will show that succeeding to
the executive head of the Government
at a moment of most complicated mill
tary and political peril, and when ma,
tional salvation seemed almost impossi-
BILE, he displayed such simplicity, earn
estness, honesty, patience and sagacity-
neither overwhelmed by disaster, mol
confounded by treachery, nor disquietec
by the distrust of friends-that he ma!
be truly called Providential man.
Harper's Weekly, Aug. 29.