Prescott journal. [volume] (Prescott, Wis.) 1861-1871, 1864-01-30

materials of weakness in the present, as Mr..
Lincoln Even in that half of the Union
which acknowledged him as President, there
was large and at that time dangerous, mi
nority, that hardly admitted his claim to the
office, and in the party that elected him there
was also large minority that suspected him
Of being secretly a communicate with the
| church of Laodicea. All that he did was
sure to be virulently attacked as ultra on one
side; all that was left undone, to be stigma
tized as proof of his lukewarmness and back
sliding by the other. Meanwhile, he was to
carry ON truly colossal war by means of
both; he was to disengage the country from
diplomatic entanglements of unprecedented
peril, updisturbed by the help or the him
drance of either, and to win from the crown
ing dangers of his administration, in the con-
fidence of the people, the means of his safe
ty and their own. He has contrived to do it,
and perhaps none of our Presidents since
Washington has stood so firm in the conf
dence of the people as he does, after three
years of stormy administration.
Mr.. Lincoln's policy was testative one,
and rightly. He laid down no programme
which must compel him to be either inconsis-
tent or unwise, no cast-iron theorem to which
circumstances must be fitted as-they rose, or
else be useless to his ends. He seemed to
have chosen Mazarin's motto, lie temps Ct MOL
The moi, to be sure, was not very prominent
at first; but it has grown more and more so,
ill the world is beginning to be persuaded
that it stands for character of marked indi-
viduality and capacity for affairs. Time was
his prime minister, and, we began to think at
one period, his observation-disclosures. AT first
he was so slow that he tired out all those who
see no evidence of progress but in blowing up
tl.aa ha fast no
the breath away from those who think there
is no getting on safely while there is spark
of fire under the boilers. God is the only
being who has time enough; but a prudent
man, who knows how to seize occasion, can
commonly make a shift to find as much as he
needs. Mr.. Lincoln, as it seems to US in re-
viewing his career, though we have some
| times in our impatience thought otherwise,
has always waited, as wise man should, till
the right moment brought up all his reserves
Sanper noc1at difere pardtiS is a sound axiom,
but the really efficacious man will also be
sure to know when he is not ready, and be
firm against all persuasion and reproach till
he is.
One would be apt to think, from some of
the criticisms made on Mr.. Lincoln's course
by those who mainly agree with him i'll prin-
ciple, that the chief object of statesman
should be rather to proclaim his adhesion to
certain doctrines, than TO achieve their tri-
umph by quietly accomplishing his ends. In
our opinion, there isno more unsafe politician
than conscentiously rigid doctrinaire, moth
ing more sure to end in disaster than a theor-
etc scheme of policy that admits of no plia-
bility for contingencies. True, there lisa pop
ular image of an impossible He, in whose plas-
tic hands the submissive destinies of mankind
! become as wax, and to whose commanding
necessity the toughest facts yield with the
graceful pliancy OF fiction; but in real life we
commonly find that the men who control cir
cumstances, as it is called, are those who
have learned to allow for the influence of their
eddies, and have the nerve to turn them 10
account at the happy instant. Mr.. Lincoln's
perilous task has been to carry rather shack
ing raft through the rapids, making fast the
unrulier logs as he could snatch opportunity,
and the country is to be congratulated that
he did not think it his duty to run straight at
all hazards, but cautiously TO assure himself
with his setting-pole where the main current
was, and keep steadily to that. He is still in
wild water, but we have faith that his skill
and sureness of eve viii bring him out right
AT last