In the April number of the _North American_ Lowell took for his text General McClellan’s Report, and applied his powers of analysis to this for the purpose of constructing the figure of Lincoln’s opponent. McClellan was no longer in the field, but he was the military critic of the administration and the man about whom the forces in opposition were gradually collecting, since he seemed to have been thrown up for this purpose by the elements which were most active. McClellan’s report, which had recently appeared, covered the period from July, 1861, to November, 1862, a period which in the rapid progress of events was already historical and could be examined in the light of later movements. To McClellan, however, the Report was an _apologia pro vita sua_, and nothing had happened since it was written, so essentially was he a critic rather than a creator. Lowell was quick to see the weakness of McClellan’s position in defending himself, preliminary to assuming a position where he was to defend the country, and in making his defence issue in charges against the authority under whose orders he had acted. He saw not so much the politician under the soldier’s cloak as a man of such calibre as fitted him to become the tool of politicians, and so self-conscious that once he is possessed of the notion of his political importance he looks at everything from a personal point of view. The Report gave abundant evidence of this, and Lowell follows him through the narrative, not as a military critic but as a student of human nature, and in his summary asks the very pertinent question if a man of this make-up is a man to put at the head of affairs. “Though we think,” he says, “great injustice has been done by the public to General McClellan’s really high merit as an officer, yet it seems to us that those very merits show precisely the character of intellect to unfit him for the task just now demanded of a statesman. His capacity for organization may be conspicuous; but be it what it may, it is one thing to bring order out of the confusion of mere inexperience, and quite another to retrieve it from a chaos of elements mutually hostile, which is the problem sure to present itself to the next administration. This will constantly require precisely that judgment on the nail, and not to be drawn for at three days’ sight, of which General McClellan has shown least. Is our path to be so smooth for the next four years that a man whose leading characteristic is an exaggeration of difficulties is likely to be our surest guide?... The man who is fit for the office of President in these times should be one who knows how to advance, an art which General McClellan has never learned.”