The President may have argued,
(1,) that the American mind had been brought up to the point of
emancipation under certain well-defined conditions, and that, if he
should not avail himself of the state of opinion, the opportunity
afforded him might pass away, never to return with equal force; (2,)
that foreign nations might base acknowledgment of the Confederacy on the
defeats experienced by our armies in the last days of August, on the
danger of Washington, and on the advance of Rebel armies to the Ohio,
and he was determined that they should, if admitting the Confederacy
to national rank, place themselves in the position of supporters of
slavery; and, (3,) that the successes won by our army in Maryland,
considering the disgraceful business at Harper's Ferry, were not of that
pronounced character which entitles us to assert any supremacy over the
enemy as soldiers. Something like this would seem to be the process
through which President Lincoln arrived at the sound conclusion that the
hour had come to strike a heavy blow at the enemy, and that he was the
man for the hour.
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