Rise to Greatness by David Von Drehle Read Free Book Online Page A

and sent the soldiers. If there was pain to endure and sacrifice to be made to save the Union, her citizens must carry the cost. And he was confident they would, if only he could explain the need for the war and show them some results. No generals and no strategies would save the Union if these ordinary people did not choose to save it, and so Lincoln tried to help them see that their power—not his—was at stake. Not only did the citizenry have the right to elect a government, they should be able to trust that the losing voters would not destroy the nation in protest. This principle, above all others, was worth fighting for, and it was at the heart of Lincoln’s conviction that the Union must not ransom its future to an aristocracy of slave owners.
    Having made his own way up from a dirt-floored hovel, Lincoln believed that economic opportunity, the right to rise in the world, was the foundation of political liberty. Slavery, for Lincoln, was the ultimate repudiation of the link between effort and advancement. Owning slaves, he once remarked to a friend, was the sign of “the gentleman of leisure who was above and scorned labour.” But in a healthy society, Lincoln believed, nothing was above labor—neither wealth, nor aristocracy, nor dictatorial power. “The prudent, penniless beginner in the world, labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself; then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him,” Lincoln said. “This is the just, and generous, and prosperous system which opens the way to all—gives hope to all, and consequent energy, and progress, and improvement of condition to all. No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty.” These good citizens, the president believed, must never surrender their power.
    On that first day of the new year, Abraham Lincoln shook those outstretched hands until his fingers trembled because with the public on his side he might be able to untangle this horrible knot: master the army, hold Europe at bay, tame the Congress, coordinate the government, rescue the Treasury, launch an offensive, hold on to the border states, solve the problem of slavery, and somehow preserve his own sanity. Without public support, the country was finished. Lincoln knew he must move quickly—but never faster than the public could tolerate. He must move boldly—but never more vigorously than the people would sustain. He was driven by a simple theory, one friend summed up: “That but one thing was necessary, and that was a united North.”
    The president shook the last hand at about two P.M. , and then the final visitors descended from the East Room window to the White House lawn. Beyond the gates, the holiday continued long into the night, with parades and cannon fire and barrels of beer. Lincoln’s right arm ached, and his thoughts were dark. As he told a trusted friend the next day, he was, for the first time, beginning to consider “the bare possibility of our being two nations.” But he had sworn a solemn oath to preserve the Constitution and, as the coming year would prove, he did not give up easily. So Lincoln walked with his ungainly stride down the long central corridor of the White House and climbed the stairs to the second floor. With his boys lost joyfully in the celebration outside, there was nothing to keep him from the office, and though he was exhausted, it was time to go to work.
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    Lincoln’s first task as the year began was to get the army moving. So much hinged on the idea of action. Action would raise the mood of the public. It would create a unifying sense of purpose in the North, and that, in turn, would strengthen congressional support for the administration and unfreeze the market for government bonds. Action would stave off foreign intervention, as the European powers waited to judge the results. Action would begin to push the front