Lincoln, the unknown

162•LINCOLN THE UNKNOWNwould get guns, powder, credit, food, railroad equipment, anda tremendous lift in confidence and morale.And what would the North get? Two new and powerful enemies.The situation, bad enough now, would be hopeless then.Nobody knew this better than Abraham Lincoln. "We haveabout played our last card," he confessed in 1862. "We musteither change our tactics now or lose the game."As England saw it, all the colonies had originally secededfrom her. Now the Southern colonies had, in turn, seceded fromthe Northern ones; and the North was fighting to coerce andsubdue them. What difference did it make to a lord in Londonor a prince in Paris whether Tennessee and Texas were ruledfrom Washington or Richmond? None. To them, the fightingwas meaningless and fraught with no high purpose."No war ever raging in my time," wrote Carlyle, "was to memore profoundly foolish looking."Lincoln saw that Europe's attitude toward the war must bechanged, and he knew how to do it. A million people in Europehad read "Uncle Tom's Cabin"—had read it and wept andlearned to abhor the heartaches and injustice of slavery. SoAbraham Lincoln knew that if he issued his Proclamation ofEmancipation, Europeans would see the war in a different light.It would no longer be a bloody quarrel over the preservationof a Union that meant nothing to them. Instead, it would beexalted into a holy crusade to destroy slavery. European governmentswould then not dare to recognize the South. Publicopinion wouldn't tolerate the aiding of a people supposed tobe fighting to perpetuate human bondage.Finally, therefore, in July,1862, Lincoln determined to issuehis proclamation; but McClellan and Pope had recently ledthe army to humiliating defeats. Seward told the President that thetime was not auspicious, that he ought to wait and launch theproclamation on the crest of a wave of victory.That sounded sensible. So Lincoln waited; and two monthslater the victory came. Then Lincoln called his Cabinet togetherto discuss the issuing of the most famous document in Americanhistory since the Declaration of Independence.It was a momentous occasion—and a grave one. But didLincoln act gravely and solemnly? He did not. Whenever hecame across a good story, he liked to share it. He used to takeone of Artemus Ward's books to bed with him; and when heread something humorous, he would get up, and, clad in noth-