Such at first was the position taken up by an unanimous Congress. It was obviously in accord with those political principles of Lincoln which have been examined in a former chapter. More than that, it was the position which, as he thought, his official duty as President imposed on him. It is exceedingly difficult for any Englishman to follow his course as the political situation developed. He was neither a dictator, nor an English Prime Minister. He was first and foremost an elected officer with powers and duties prescribed by a fixed Constitution which he had sworn to obey. His oath was continually present to his mind. He was there to uphold the Union and the laws, with just so much infraction of the letter of the law, and no more, as might be obviously necessary if the Union and the whole fabric of law were not to perish. The mere duration of the war altered of necessity the policy of the North and of the President. Their task had presented itself as in theory the "suppression of an unlawful combination" within their country; it became in manifest fact the reabsorption of a country now hostile, with which reunion was possible only if slavery, the fundamental cause of difference, was uprooted. As the hope of a speedy victory and an easy settlement vanished, wide differences of opinion appeared again in the North, and the lines on which this cleavage proceeded very soon showed themselves. There were those who gladly welcomed the idea of a crusade against slavery, and among them was an unreasonable section of so-called Radicals. These resented that delay in a policy of wholesale liberation which was enforced by legal and constitutional scruples, and by such practical considerations as the situation in the slave States which adhered to the North. There was, on the other hand, a Democratic party Opposition which before long began to revive. It combined many shades of opinion. There were supporters or actual agents of the South, few at first and very quiet, but ultimately developing a treasonable activity. There were those who constituted themselves the guardians of legality and jealously criticised all the measures of emergency which became more or less necessary. Of the bulk of the Democrats it would probably be fair to say that their conscious intention throughout was to be true to the Union, but that throughout they were beset by a respect for Southern rights which would have gone far to paralyse the arm of the Government. Lastly, there were Republicans, by no means in sympathy with the Democratic view, who became suspect to their Radical fellows and were vaguely classed together as Conservatives. This term may be taken to cover men simply of moderate and cautious, or in some cases, of variable disposition, but it included, too, some men who, while rigorous against the South, were half-hearted in their detestation of slavery.