The magnitude of this act, as well as the usefulness of a mere “radical” politician, may be measured by what Lincoln’s life would have been without his name at the bottom of the Emancipation Proclamation. Tradition has it that Lincoln became a radical upon the slavery question when, as a flatboatman upon the Mississippi, he saw a negress sold upon the auction block at New Orleans. Tradition has it that he said: “If I ever have a chance to hit slavery, I will hit it and hit it hard.” The fact is that when Mr. Lincoln began to get the power to hit slavery, he did not hit it hard. He was a “radical” politician and therefore could not hit it hard. He was against slavery, but he was also against anything that would end slavery. In the phrase of our time, he wanted to “regulate” slavery. Men like John Brown and William Lloyd Garrison wanted to end slavery and advocated means that would have ended it, but Lincoln, though he hated slavery as much as they did, wanted only to restrict it. He was “radical.” Brown and Garrison were revolutionary. Lincoln meant well. Brown and Garrison were determined to do well. But after Lincoln, even as President, had continued to temporize with slavery; after he had sent word to the Southern leaders that if they would let him write into a treaty of peace the one word “union” he would let them write all of the other words, including “slavery”—after all of this, there came a change, and Lincoln ceased to be a “radical.” Then, and not until then, did he strike the blow that in his youth he declared he would strike if ever the opportunity should come. With only the briefest words he laid the Emancipation Proclamation before his cabinet. “I do not lay this before you for your advice,” he said, “but only for your information. I have promised my God that I will do this, and I shall do it.” Thus spoke the revolutionist. The time for “radicalism” had passed. Slavery, during half a century of “radicalism,” had expanded. Having the power to kill chattel slavery and daring to use it, Lincoln killed chattel slavery. He put himself into the hearts of men. He wrote his name so big in history that the names of all other men since his time seem small. Yet Lincoln, if he had been content to remain merely a “radical,” could have performed no service for his country worth while, and Fame would have missed him by many a mile. If the South had won, the North would have blamed Lincoln. If the North had won, without destroying chattel slavery, nothing would have been settled, and Lincoln would have been given the credit for settling nothing. Lincoln’s greatest opportunity to serve his country lay in doing precisely what he did, and it is to his eternal glory that he had both the understanding and the courage to do it.