Confused as was the counsel offered to them, and
distracting as were their habits of political thought, the people of the
North finally disentangled the essential question, and then supported
loyally the man who, more than any other single political leader, had
properly defined the issue.
That man was Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln's peculiar service to his
countrymen before the war was that of seeing straighter and thinking
harder than did his contemporaries. No doubt he must needs have courage,
also, for in the beginning he acted against the advice of his Republican
associates. But in 1858 there were plenty of men who had the courage,
whereas there were very few who had Lincoln's disciplined intelligence
and his just and penetrating insight. Lincoln's vision placed every
aspect of the situation in its proper relations; and he was as fully
competent to detect the logical weakness of his opponent's position as
he was to explain his own lucidly, candidly, and persuasively. It so
happened that the body of public opinion which he particularly addressed
was that very part of the American democracy most likely to be deluded
into allowing the Southern leaders to have their will, yet whose
adhesion to the national cause was necessary to the preservation of the
Union.
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