“It requires no gift of prophecy, Mr. President, to foretell these things. It needs but full faith in the operation of Divine laws to anticipate all that I have prefigured. You refuse now to let me raise a black regiment. In less than ten months you will give me a _carte blanche_ to enlist as many negroes as I can for the war.” “Perhaps,—but I don’t see my way clear to do it yet.” “A great man,” said Vance, “ought to lead and fashion public opinion in stupendous emergencies like this,—ought to throw himself boldly on some great principle having its root in eternal justice,—ought to grapple it, cling to it, stake everything upon it, and make everything give way to it.” “But I am not a great man, Mr. Vance,” said the President, with unaffected _naïveté_. “I believe your intentions are good and great, Mr. President,” was the reply; “for what you supremely desire is, to do your duty.” “Yes, I claim that much. Thank you.” “Well, your duty is to take the most energetic measures for conquering a peace. Under the Constitution, the war power is committed to your hands. That power is not defined by the Constitution, for it is imprescriptible; regulated by international usage. That usage authorizes you to free the slaves of an enemy. Why not do it?” “Would not a proclamation of emancipation from Abraham Lincoln be much like the Pope’s bull against the comet?” “There is this difference: in the latter case, the fulmination is against what we have no reason to suppose is an evil; in the former case, you would attack with moral weapons what you know to be a wrong and an injustice immediately under your eyes and within your reach. If it could be proved that the comet is an evil, the Pope’s bull would not seem to me an absurdity; for I have faith in the operation of ideas, and in the triumph of truth and good _throughout the universe_. But the emancipation proclamation would not be futile; for it would give body and impulse to an _idea_, and that idea one friendly to right and to progress.” The President rose, and, walking to the window, drummed a moment with his fingers abstractedly on the glass, then, returning to his chair, reseated himself and said: “As Chief Magistrate of the Republic, my first duty is to save it. If I can best do that by tolerating slavery, slavery shall be tolerated. If I can best do it by abolishing slavery, you may be sure I will try to abolish it. But I mustn’t be biased by my feelings or my sentiments.” “Why not?” asked Vance. “Do not all great moral truths originate in the feelings and the sentiments? The heart’s policy is often the safest. Is not cruelty wrong because the heart proclaims it? Is not despotism to be opposed because the heart detests it?”