They demanded
a short, sharp, decisive campaign. Let the army wheel into line, march
straight into Richmond, take Jefferson Davis a prisoner, hang him and a
few leaders of the "rebellion," and the trouble would be over. This
demand became at length the maddened cry of a mob:
"On to Richmond!"
Every demagogue howled it. Every newspaper repeated it. As city after
city, and State after State took up the cry, the pressure on the man at
the helm of Government became resistless. It was a political necessity
to fight a battle and fight at once or lose control of the people he had
been called to lead.
The Abolitionists only sneered at this cry. They demanded an answer to a
single insistent question:
"What are you going to fight about?"
A battle which does not settle the question of Slavery they declared to
be a waste of blood and treasure. If the slave was not the issue, why
fight? The South would return to the Union which they had always ruled
if let alone. Why fight them for nothing?
Gilbert Winter, their spokesman at Washington, again confronted the
President with his uncompromising demand:
"An immediate proclamation of emancipation!"
And the President with quiet dignity refused to consider it.
"Why?" again thundered the Senator.
His answer was always the same:
"I am not questioning the right or wrong of Slavery.
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