For the first time the question of Union or Disunion was squarely up to
the North in an election. And it came at an unlucky moment for the
President. The army in the West had ceased to win victories. The
Southern army under Lee was still defending Richmond as strongly as
ever.
There was no evading the issue at the polls. The Proclamation had
committed the President to the bold, far-reaching radical and aggressive
policy of the utter destruction of Slavery. The people were asked to
choose between Slavery on the one hand and nationality on the other. The
two together they could not again have.
The President had staked his life on his faith that the people could be
trusted on a square issue of right and wrong.
This time he had underestimated the force of blind passions which the
hell of war had raised.
Maine voted first and cut down her majority for the administration from
nineteen thousand to a bare four thousand. The fact was ominous.
Ohio spoke next and Van Alen's ticket against the administration swept
the State, returning fourteen Democrats and only five Republicans to
Congress.
Indiana, the State in which the President's mother slept, spoke in
thunder tones against him, sending eight Democrats and three
Republicans. Even the rockribbed Republican stronghold of Pennsylvania
was carried by the opposition by a majority of four thousand, reversing
Lincoln's former majority of sixty thousand.
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