In New York the brilliant Democratic leader, Horatio Seymour, was
elected Governor on a platform hostile to the administration by more
than ten thousand majority. New Jersey turned against him, Michigan
reduced his majority from twenty to six thousand. Wisconsin evenly
divided its delegates to Congress.
Illinois, the President's own State, gave the most crushing blow of all.
His big majority there was completely reversed and the Democrats carried
the State by over seventeen thousand and the Congressional delegates
stood eleven to three against him.
And then his Border State Policy, against which the leaders of his party
had raged in vain was vindicated in the most startling way. True to his
steadfast purpose to hold these States in the Union at all hazards, he
had not included them in his Emancipation Proclamation.
One of the reasons for which they had refused his offer of United States
bonds in payment for their slaves was they did not believe them worth
the paper they were written on. A war costing two million dollars a day
was sure to bankrupt the Nation before the end could be seen.
And yet because he had treated them with patience and fairness, with
justice and with generosity, the Border States and the new State of West
Virginia born of this policy, voted to sustain the President, saved his
administration from ruin and gave him another chance to fight for the
life of the Union.
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