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282 LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

It is due perhaps to myself to say here that I did not take Mr. Lincoln's
attentions as due to my merits or personal qualities. While I have no doubt
that Messrs. Seward and Chase had spoken well of me to him, and the fact
of my having been a slave, and gained my freedom, and of having picked
up some sort of an education, and being in some sense a "self-made man,''
and having made myself useful as an advocate of the claims of my people,
gave me favor in his eyes; yet I am quite sure that the main thing which gave
me consideration with him was my well known relation to the colored
people of the Republic, and especially the help which that relation enabled
me to give to the work of suppressing the rebellion and of placing the Union
on a firmer basis than it ever had or could have sustained in the days of
slavery.

So long as there was any hope whatsoever of the success or Rebellion,
there was of course a corresponding fear that a new lease or life would be
granted to slavery. The proclamation of Fremont in Missouri, the letter of
Phelps in the Department of the Gulf, the enlistment of colored troops by
Gen. Hunter, the "Contraband" letter of Gen. B. F. Butler. the soldierly qualities
surprisingly displayed by colored soldiers in the terrific battles of Port
Hudson, Vicksburg, Morris Island, and elsewhere, the Emancipation proclamation
by Abraham Lincoln had given slavery many and deadly wounds, yet
it was in fact only wounded and crippled, not disabled and killed. With this
condition of national affairs came the summer or 1864, and with it the
revived Democratic party, with the story in its mouth that the war was a
failure, and with Gen. George B. McClellan, the greatest failure or the war,
as its candidate for the Presidency. It is needless to say that the success of
such a party, on such a platform, with such a candidate, at such a time would
have been a fatal calamity. All that had been done towards suppressing the
rebellion and abolishing slavery would have proved of no avail, and the final
settlement between the two sections of the Republic, touching slavery and
the right of secession, would have been left to tear and rend the country again
at no distant future.

It was said that this Democratic party, which under Mr. Buchanan had
betrayed the Government into the hands of secession and treason, was the
only party which could restore the country to peace and union. No doubt it
would have "patched up'' a peace, but it would have been a peace more to be
dreaded than war. So at least I felt and worked. When we were thus asked to
exchange Abraham Lincoln for McClellan — a successful Union President
for an unsuccessful Union General — a party earnestly endeavoring to save
the Union, torn and rent by a gigantic rebellion, for one that would not do so.