"You'll change your principles or retire to private life!" the old man snapped.
"When I have saved the Union we shall see. Time will indicate the wisdom of my position. I have no longer any ambition except to give the best that's in me to my people."
The breach between the President and the most powerful leaders of his own party was now complete. It was a difference that was fundamental and irreconcilable. They asked him to extend the autocratic power he wielded to preserve the Union in a time of war to a program of revenge and proscription against the South as it should fall before the advancing army. His answer was simple:
"Secession was void from the beginning. The South shall not be laid waste as conquered territory when the Union is restored. They shall return as our brethren to live with us in peace and good will with the curse of Slavery lifted from them and their children. Nor will I permit the absorption of this black blood into our racial stock to degrade our National character. When free, the negro must return to his own."
With fierce, sullen determination the Radical wing of his party organized a secret powerful conspiracy to drive Abraham Lincoln from public life.
Behind this first line of attack stood the Democratic party with its millions of loyal voters now united under George B. McClellan. The Radicals and the Democrats hated each other with a passion second only to their hatred of the President. They agreed to remove him first and then settle their own differences.
[CHAPTER XXV]
[THE TUG OF WAR]
Betty Winter, having made up her mind to put John Vaughan out of her life for all time, volunteered for field service as a nurse and by permission of the President joined Burnside's army before Fredericksburg.