There
was general distrust of the President. Most alarming of all,
that ebb of the wave of enthusiasm which began in midsummer,
1861, reached in the autumn of 1862 perhaps its lowest point.
The measure of the reaction against Lincoln was given in the
Congressional election, in which, though the Government still
retained a working majority, the Democrats gained thirty-three
seats.
* See Chapter IX.
If there could be such a thing as a true psychological history of
the war, one of its most interesting pages would determine just
how far Stanton was responsible, through his strange blunder over
recruiting, for the check to enthusiasm among the Northern
people. With this speculation there is connected a still unsolved
problem in statistics. To what extent did the anti-Lincoln vote,
in 1862, stand for sympathy with the South, and how far was it
the hopeless surrender of Unionists who felt that their cause was
lost? Though certainty on this point is apparently impossible,
there can be no doubt that at the opening of 1863, the Government
felt it must apply pressure to the flagging spirits of its
supporters. In order to reenforce the armies and to push the war
through, there was plainly but one course to be
followed--conscription.
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