20 MARCH 1964, Page 11

Winning the Presidency Just a hundred years ago, a few

days after Ulysses S. Grant was placed in command of the entire military forces of the United States, The Times at least had no doubt where lay the canker at the heart of the Union's war effort. This week Sir William Haley bravely reprinted his paper's words at the time: `Mr. Lincoln is confessedly incompetent to restore peace or prosecute a suc- cessful war. Even his honesty ... appears to have succumbed to the evil influences which surround him. Three years' possession of power has familiarised him with baseness.... He has learnt to play with principles as gamblers play with dice, and, desiring to be renominated to the Presidency, he is determined to win the game unfairly if he cannot win it otherwise... .'