On the record
Always an admirable adviser where prudence and caution were the virtues required, he was fatally wanting in a situation which demanded prompt action and strong nerve.
Source
gutenberg.orgEditor's note · Context
Blaine critiques a leader's inability to act decisively in times of crisis.
Share
More from James Blaine
In turn, the course of the National Administration would certainly be influenced, and its fate in large degree determined, by the conduct of the Southern men, in whom the President was placing unbounded trust.
The Northern people shrank from the responsibility of transferring the government of States to the control of men who had already shown themselves capable of desperate deeds.
In my judgment our sole authority for the acts which we have done during the last four years was the authority communicated to Congress by the Constitution to suppress insurrection.
With whatever strength or prestige the President left Washington, he certainly returned to the Capital personally discredited and politically ruined.
Other voices in this conversation
