After all, these various attempts to discredit the name of
Abraham Lincoln caused hardly a ripple on the great current of
public opinion, and death alone could have prevented his choice
by the Republican national convention. He took no measures to
help on his own candidacy. With strangers he would not talk about
the probability of his reelection; but with friends he made no
secret of his readiness to continue the work he was engaged in if
such should be the general wish. "A second term would be a great
honor and a great labor; which together, perhaps, I would not
decline," he wrote to one of them. He discouraged officeholders,
either civil or military, who showed any special zeal in his
behalf. To General Schurz, who wrote asking permission to take an
active part in the campaign for his reelection, he answered: "I
perceive no objection to your making a political speech when you
are where one is to be made; but quite surely, speaking in the
North and fighting in the South at the same time are not
possible, nor could I be justified to detail any officer to the
political campaign . . . and then return him to the army."
He himself made no long speeches during the summer, and in his
short addresses, at Sanitary Fairs, in answer to visiting
delegations, and on similar occasions where custom and courtesy
obliged him to say a few words, he kept his quiet ease and
self-command, speaking heartily and to the point, yet avoiding
all the pitfalls that beset the candidate who talks.
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